


The Highwaymen’s Hunt

by Guede



Series: A Supernatural Rogue's Guide to Country Peerage [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enlightenment, Alternate Universe - Historical, BAMF Lydia Martin, Banshee Lydia Martin, Bondage, Dildos, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Full Shift Werewolves, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Multi, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Slow Burn, Topping from the Bottom, Wedding Night, Wild Hunt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-03 05:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 90,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Back in the days when you had horse-drawn carriages and highwaymen holding them up, Derek and Peter hold up Stiles and Lydia.  Who are engaged.  And when they’re not bickering about how to run their estate, leaders of the Wild Hunt (the original, non-Ghost Riders in the Sky version).Probably a bad carriage to pick, even if you’re a werewolf.8/22/17:“I think no killing the guests includes you too, I mean, honestly, we’re married now, that officially means you don’t have any reason to be inhospitable and hey!  Not even a guest!” Stiles says, yanking on the shirt and running over and amazingly, not even tripping over anything.  He even gets his head out the right hole, and just in time to pull up by Lydia and not ram face-first into Erica, who’s peeking around the door.“So there’s no duty of hospitality owed,” Lydia says dryly.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is intended to be historically accurate regarding the seventeeth/eighteenth-ish century/Enlightenment Europe the same way that [A Knight's Tale](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183790/) was to the Middle Ages (or any CW show set in a historical period, to be honest): going after the spirit, rather than the fact, with bucketloads of anachronisms on the way.

The first time Stiles comes across a werewolf, he’s just old enough to clutch at the pommel of his mother’s horse’s saddle as the hunt sweeps down the mountainside, the hooves of their mounts snapping off treetops, its fierce, eerie howl leaving a wide wake of shivering, terrified beings. And then, as the pines bend before the hunt’s passing, little Stiles chatters excitedly and falls off the horse.

Well, honestly, he jumps, because his parents are the leaders of a sky-trampling, spectral hunt that has stamped itself indelibly into the imaginations of people across the north, and he doesn’t know any better. His whole life—what there’s been of it so far—he’s seen fiery-eyed, mist-snorting horses as pets and skeletal spirits as everyday guests. So of course when he spots a tiny, mewling, black-and-grey bundle huddled right in the path of the hunt, he doesn’t think twice about the fact that his mother’s steed is walking on thunderheads.

“Stiles!” his mother shouts, bringing the hunt to a screeching halt. 

Demon horses pile up on top of each other, nipping the flanks of the one before them with their frostbite breath. Ghostly warriors clash into inglorious heaps of mixed-up bones and archaic weaponry. And Stiles’ father, frantic at the sight of his giggling, falling-like-a-stone child, picks up a stray thighbone and sends it skidding into the snow below, throwing up a heap that serves as a fine featherbed landing pad for Stiles. Who doesn’t even notice as he toddles and scrabbles and flops down the snowdrift, just ahead of his parents’ grasping hands, until he’s run right up to the dumbstruck wolf-cub.

“Doggie!” Stiles says, putting both chubby hands out towards the cub.

His parents hold their breath. They’re the latest in a line of hunt leaders that stretch back into the misty beginnings of time, when the forces that have shaped the world first began to stretch and twist themselves into manifestations recognizable, albeit through the dim lens of myth, to humans. They head a hunt that has swallowed up whole armies in fogbanks and distant screams, with only the bones left to be revealed by the spring melt. On their night, even death steps aside. And yet, even they have their vulnerabilities—tonight they are things of shadow and storm, of spirits of air and night, but there is their sole child and heir, down on the solid earth.

The cub tilts its head. Sensing uncertainty, Stiles himself grows a little shy and his hands falter, although he still doesn’t move back enough for his hovering father to seize him. “Doggie?” he says.

A spark of intelligence lights up the wolf-cub’s eyes. It shakes its head and behind Stiles, his mother stiffens sharply, realizing that this is no mere animal, but a _werewolf_ child, lost and frightened and still in possession of sharp teeth and strong jaws. She seizes the pommel and has one leg swinging out of the saddle, ready to dare the earth to save her son, even if it weakens her, and…the cub pushes itself back on its hindquarters. It shakes its head again, then sneezes. Loudly. With much spittle.

Stiles makes a face, poking at some of the spots where the spit’s dampened him, and then looks up quickly at the cub again. “Sick doggie?”

The cub starts to shake its head again, sneezes in the middle of it, and suddenly tumbles into a dark-haired boy about Stiles’ age. “’m not a dog, a _wolf_ ,” he says, and then he gives Stiles an apologetic smile. Rummages around and comes up with a handful of snow. “Sorry I got you? Clean off?”

“Oh!” Stiles says, and ignores the handful to bumble forward and throw his arms around the embarrassed werewolf boy. “Wolf! Wolf!”

“Well, he did stand his ground. Technically,” Stiles’ father mutters to his mother. “I don’t think he was really thinking about it, but rules are rules.”

“Oh, John, look at them,” Stiles’ mother tuts, in between pulling loose a silk banner from an undead knight puzzling over its extra shinbone. She draws her sword, frowns at the banner, and with two quick slashes, converts it to a scarf that she then dangles over the two snuggling children. “I _told_ you he’s lonely. It’s not healthy for a child to just bowl ninepins with skulls all day.”

“Even though he beats the pants off half the foot-soldiers?” Stiles’ father says, but he’s already shaking his head. “All right, all right. One time can’t hurt.”

And that is how Scott enters the Wild Hunt.

That is also not just the _one_ time. Stiles has a tiny problem with grabby hands, you see.

* * *

Five werewolves later, Stiles is running his second-ever lone hunt—sure, it’s not the _Hunter’s Moon_ hunt, but it’s a good full moon, with a baleful yellow cast over it, and the whole past week has seen wave after wave of thunderstorms, and all in all, he feels like it’s a great night to practice his terrifying skills. “At the very _least_ , let’s inspire some pagan revivals,” he says, mounting up.

Scott tugs at his boot, and after making sure Stiles doesn’t tip off the saddle, his chief werewolf and best friend hands him his staff. “You probably need this for that,” Scott says, completely out of helpfulness, not a speck of mockery in him.

Sad to say but the rest of the pack isn’t so considerate. “Also, you might want to remember to put on your antlers, o terrifying one,” Erica drawls, making horn-signs on either side of her head.

“Can we get started yet?” Jackson complains from further back in the train. “This drizzle is going to ruin the sheen on my new coat if we just keep standing around.”

“Well, then at least you won’t stick out like a sore thumb,” Isaac mutters.

Jackson growls petulantly. “Point out to me where it says that you can’t be terrifying unless you dress like an outdated eyesore.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, regretting every instant of the night he decided to feel sorry for a runaway werewolf too busy whining to himself about muddy boots to notice the Wild Hunt bearing down on him. Then he catches Scott’s eye. Scott sighs and goes back in the train before the skeletal knights kill Jackson for calling them badly-dressed eyesores—sure, they’re several centuries behind, wardrobe-wise, but in Stiles’ opinion, when you’re dead, you can dress however you feel comfortable—while Stiles lifts his staff, lets the antlers curl out of his hair, and kicks off the hunt.

And it goes swimmingly right up till they get to a certain country estate. The house is amazing, a converted castle with parts that obviously date back to pre-Christian times, and Stiles wants to honor anybody who’s taken the trouble to keep around something like that, so he leads the hunt in a couple circles over it.

When they’re nearly done with the second circle, an upper window is flung open and a girl storms out onto the balcony, her hair somehow taking up the dim flicker of the candle in her hand to flare into a fiery corona around her. “Oh, I am _so_ sorry that _some_ of us are trying to _sleep_!” she shouts up at them.

Stiles blinks and accidentally tugs on the reins of his horse, causing it to slow down almost on top of the balcony the girl is on. When he realizes what’s happened, he improvises and yanks harder, so it rears up and strikes a veritable meteor shower out of the clouds, highlighting the murder-red glow of its eyes and smoking nostrils. Lightning tangles in his antlers and around his staff.

The girl folds her arms across her chest, patently and deeply unimpressed. “Sell me the engraving, it’ll last longer,” she says. Her head tilts. “And be more dignified. Who let you out of your grave with those boots?”

“Engraving?” Stiles sputters. He stops pulling on the reins and his horse obediently drops back to all fours. Jars him in the saddle, so somebody grabs his cloak and pulls him back, but he irritably waves an arm behind him to make them stop distracting him. “I’m not a children’s _fairytale_ , and what’s wrong with my boots? These are traditional! Do you know how old they are? Do you know how many kings of old they’ve stepped on?”

“Same thing I’ve been saying,” drifts up from Jackson. “Look, classic is fine but you have to get your _match_ right, and you just can’t put something like pre-Norman Conquest together with classical antiquity. It doesn’t work.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, the ancient Britons managed that all the time,” the girl says, shooting a dismissive glance at Jackson. Then, before Stiles starts to think he’s off the hook, she turns back to him. “What I _meant_ , you ill-educated, unobservant pack of cretins, was that it might help to make you look like a legitimate threat if you actually put your boots on the right _feet_.”

Stiles…bends over and raises his right foot for a look. At the same time, Scott pops up from the train and ducks around a knight to grab Stiles by the heel and frown at the shoe, too.

“Well, I mean, it’s not like they’re uncomfortable that way, right?” Scott attempts. “And they stayed on.”

“Oh, for the sake of all the old gods,” the girl says. “Get down here, _I’ll_ show you idiots how to scare people.”

“What would you know about it?” Stiles says. Pride a bit stung, but also, genuinely curious at this point. “Didn’t you just say you should be sleeping right now?”

“If you’re any good at it, you shouldn’t have to need the whole night,” the girl says. “All you need is one…good…”

And then she opens her mouth so wide that the whole sky seems to fall into it. Her hair whips out around her, wreathed in real, actual, blindingly-bright flames, and the scream she lets out rattles the closest three knights to literal pieces.

“Banshee?” Stiles says, once he’s got his horse to stop cowering behind the new heaps of pathetically-twitching bones.

“My name’s Lydia,” the girl says, with a smile so poisonously sweet that Scott instinctively steps in front of Stiles. “And _you_ obviously need help…”

“Stiles,” Stiles says, hopping off his horse. “Stiles, that’s what everybody calls me, and I have _so_ many things I want to ask if you’re open to it, because I’ve read all about banshees but none of them ever want to talk to me, you’re always too busy talking with each other and do you mind? Can I get some things cleared up? I’ll share my library with you if you do, we’ve got some great engraving folios if that’s what you like.”

Two years, one brief aberration of common sense—as Lydia prefers to put it, and people generally find it safer to cater to her preferences—involving Jackson, and numerous instances of other werewolves losing the courage to object later, Stiles and Lydia get engaged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have not watched the last season of TW. However, I've read enough summaries to have an idea what they did with the Wild Hunt and think that it sounds like they completely missed the point of that whole body of folklore and instead decided to mash it up willy-nilly with a [couple old episodes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Stop_at_Willoughby) of the [Twilight Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_of_Difference). Anyway. This is old-school Wild Hunt, not the _Ghost Riders in the Sky_ version (which was from Texas, not California).
> 
> The ninepins is a reference to _Rip Van Winkle_.
> 
> For banshees, I'm also going back to the original Morrigan/bean nighe myths.
> 
> Lydia's actually being super-picky, as you'd be surprised how late some cultures left it to shape shoes into left and right ones, rather than having the same pattern for both feet.


	2. Chapter 2

As Stiles’ father likes to put it, one night every month, they’re divine, and the rest of the time, they need to get along with the rest of the world, so they might as well find something to do there. That’s why they have actual houses with actual estates attached to them that actually need to be managed, and _that’s_ why, on one non-full-moon night, Stiles and Lydia are riding in a carriage without any of the werewolves or other retinue members with them.

They’re in a carriage because they’re coming back from the city, where they’ve been attending a seminar put on by the Royal Society on innovative viticulture management techniques, because their vines have been suffering from parasitical attacks and being leader of the Wild Hunt sadly does not give Stiles any power over that sort of thing, while insects are too brainless to be afraid of Lydia. They’re using a hired coach because the speaker of said seminar was a stuffed shirt who took offense to a woman asking him intelligent questions, so they decided to not wait for Stiles’ father—who came in with them but went off with the steward for different business—to return their private coach, in order to not delay about getting home and doing something about the stuffed shirt’s quality of sleep from now on. And they’re without any werewolves because _no one_ , not even Scott, could even pretend to be interested in the seminar, even though all of them drink the wine.

“I’m not saying you have to be a dictator about it. I’m only pointing out that you let them get away from their duties because you feel guilty about making them do things they don’t like, when ‘like’ isn’t actually part of their duties,” Lydia is telling Stiles.

Stiles sighs and tugs at his cravat, wishing that scientific advances didn’t require him to don practically court-quality dress—it’s not like natural principles care about your wardrobe—and then yelps and skitters across the bench. “ _Ow_ , and also, while I see where you’re coming from, I have to point out that me feeling guilty at least saved us from being thrown out for somebody falling asleep and snoring again.”

Lydia snaps her fan at him, dangerously close to the knee she’d just thwapped, and then flicks it back to flutter at her face. It’s a warm, humid night, but he still thinks that the steel reinforcements are a bit much. “As opposed to having to leave because I simply couldn’t stand that imbecile’s ignorance about crop rotation theories anymore?”

“Well, Dad did say till he and Chris track down the latest missing knight, we should try not to get into trouble,” Stiles reminds her. He sneaks his hand down to rub at his still-smarting knee, then absently glances out the half-shuttered window, hearing the coachman call out to the horses. “You know, like loosing werewolves in town.”

Lydia snaps her fan shut just in time to allow Stiles the full force of her derisive snort. “This, coming from the man who had to be forcibly prevented from rededicating the lobby to pagan gods of darkness on the way out.”

“If they’re going to decorate the place using authentic Druidic symbols, then they—” Stiles starts.

The coach lurches sharply forward, then rocks backward just as sharply. Outside twin whinnies split the air, and then the coach jerks to the left as one horse thrashes against the reins. Their driver is shouting, but can’t be made out over the horses. And then there’s another sound, a low, crawling sound that manages to push its menace through the shrill cries. It’s a rolling growl.

“Get them under control,” says a man’s voice, loud but not straining for the volume. He pauses and then lets out a satisfied laugh over the quieting horses. “Much appreciated. And now that I have your undivided attention, if you might be so kind as to—”

“Are we being robbed?” Stiles hisses.

He makes for the window, only to have Lydia seize his arm. “Stiles,” she says in a warning tone. “Stiles, we’re—”

A second male voice cuts in impatiently. “Look, get out and deliver.”

“We _are_ ,” Stiles says. He jerks his arm out of Lydia’s grasp and bursts out of the coach in such a rush that he forgets to manage his boots—heels a half-inch taller than usual—and coat—its tails several inches longer than usual—and the little step, which nearly puts him face-first into the mud. Only a desperate grab for the inside door-handle saves him.

There are several exclamations, a frightened shout from the driver and a couple angry ones, and then Stiles rights himself in time to see Lydia’s fan soar out to knock a pistol askew, sending its bullet into the ground near the front wheel of the coach. He glances at the little spurt of dirt the bullet sends up, then turns slowly to look at the man who’d shot it.

“ _What_ do you think you’re doing, exactly?” Lydia demands, and before Stiles can let go of the door, she elbows her way past him, forcing him to just cling tighter to the handle.

As she flounces out of the coach, balance perfect, the man looks up sharply from the pistol, which he’d been examining as if shocked it was actually capable of firing. He’s on his feet, not on a horse, but otherwise he looks as if he stepped out of a country ballad about highwaymen, tall and broad-shouldered with darkly handsome looks. He also looks more than a little discomfited by Lydia’s onrush, first hiking the pistol back in his hand as if he means to pitch it at her and then abruptly switching to pull out a second pistol.

“Stay there, don’t come any closer,” he orders.

“Oh, as if I’d _want_ a better acquaintance with you,” Lydia says in a scathing tone. She does stop, but makes it clear with a huffy tug at her skirts that it doesn’t have the least thing to do with intimidation. “Your powder’s obviously going to be damp, you’ll be lucky if it just snuffs out the spark and doesn’t smolder till it blows up in your face half an hour later.”

The man stares at her for a few seconds. Then his eyes drop to the pistol butt, which clearly smeared in very fresh, very wet mud.

“Oh, never mind my nephew,” says the first male voice. The man who steps around the horses is older, but quite as good-looking, and with an assurance that is insidiously persuasive. He also has his own pistols, which are so well-cared for that the silver inlay glitters even in the dim light. “You’re well tended to, trust me.”

“Highwaymen!” Stiles says, delighted. He gets his feet steady and steps down from the coach, then shakes out his sleeves where the lacy cuffs have gotten tangled up with his fingers. “I mean, it’s supposed to be ‘stand and deliver,’ but otherwise you’ve got all the trappings, and you’re really highwaymen!”

Beside him, Lydia lets out a small, put-upon noise, although her expression doesn’t seem to waver an inch from its unimpressed mask. “Excuse my betrothed,” she says, her eyes fixed on the older man. “He’s a little naïve, but I assure you, he’s well-equipped.”

The man pauses, clearly wondering if he’s heard her right, and then he shrugs his head back into a cocky tilt. “Well, my dear, I do appreciate your…loyalty. Such a rare trait in women of your apparent station these days,” he says, eyes drawling up and down Lydia as much as his voice is. Then they flick over to Stiles and the appreciation in them doesn’t fade a whit. If anything, it grows. “However, for the sake of your future nuptials, I would advise that caution will save you much more trouble than bravery.”

Stiles blinks hard. He opens his mouth and then ends up stifling a gasp instead of asking his question because of how hard Lydia’s suddenly gripping his arm. When he glances at her, she’s staring at the man through narrowed eyes. The lock of hair artfully trailing out of her bun and down her cheek is unnaturally red, and growing redder every second.

“I—um—listen, that’s…very nice of you,” Stiles says hastily, dropping his arm back to circle Lydia’s waist. And maybe keep her from doing anything that would ruin her dress. She loves it, and he knows she’ll be angry if anything happens to it, even if she doesn’t think so at the time. “But maybe—um, you stopped us for money, or jewels, or something like that so why don’t we just get to that and then we can all go home before Lydia—”

Up on top of the coach, the driver suddenly slaps the reins, causing the horses to rear in their traces. At least one hoof strikes the coach itself, sending a violent cracking noise through the air, and the second man, who’d been standing by, silently disgruntled, slews around. He still has the gun, but he’s so startled that he seems to forget that and instead swings both arms wide as if he means to leap upon the nearest horse and wrestle it down.

And he’s changing, bones cracking as they rearrange themselves, allow for viciously long fangs. Fur racing back over the broadened, feral planes of his face, a wild glowing light in his eyes. He terrifies the horses even more and one of them manages to snap enough of its harness to stand up on its hind legs, screaming so loudly that Stiles can’t help clapping his hands to his ears.

The other highwayman shouts something, gesturing at the one who’s shifting. He doesn’t look pleased about the whole situation, but the shifting one just snarls back and waves the gun around, as if pointing it at the trees, the coach—the coachman hastily dives off the side—or the trees again are really going to help calm things down. If anything, he’s just encouraging the rearing horse to break loose of the rest of its traces, smash the wooden bits of the harness, and take a plunging leap towards the nearest break in the forest. Which happens to be right behind the half-transformed werewolf. He sees and sinks back into a defensive crouch, glowing eyes not quite enough to hide his distinctly rattled air.

Something thwaps Stiles’ shin and he glances down, then looks back up in time to see Lydia marching forward, skirts swirling irritably around her. She gathers her hair in one hand, pulling it out of the way as she tilts her head back.

The other highwayman suddenly notices and swings back around to face Stiles and Lydia. He still has his pistols but he’s slow to bring them up—he’s calmer than his shifted companion, but he’s clearly confused and trying to figure out the situation before he does anything. His mouth is open to yell something when Lydia screams.

Banshees have more than one scream, was one of the first things Stiles learned about them. Screams to forewarn, screams to announce, screams to promise. And sometimes, Lydia’s explained to him more than once, banshees scream because everything is patently getting ridiculous and if you have the power to make that stop, you practically have an obligation to use it.

So Lydia screams and Stiles, who’s had plenty of practice divining which scream she’s about to use from how forcefully she’s swishing her skirts, is well-prepared with his thumbs in his ears and one eye over their heads, in case any stunned flyers accidentally fall out of the sky.

None do, but when Lydia stops screaming, the usual pristine silence doesn’t prevail. Instead, there’s this sort of pained grumbling going on, which Stiles tracks from the horses—huddled back as far as they can get against the coach and frozen stiff like that—across the ground to…one miserable-looking wolf, all knotted up in once-nice clothes where it isn’t wrenching its forepaws around to flatten its ears.

“Well, I _told_ you to watch that thing,” Lydia says. She steps forward two paces, retrieves her fan, and then bends over enough to hook up the werewolf’s discarded pistol with the end of the fan, giving the now very muddy item a distasteful look. “What a shame, it’s actually a fine piece of workmanship too, and here you are, just tossing it where grit will get in and completely ruin the firing mechanism.”

Stiles comes over to look and just catches the pistol as Lydia unhooks her fan from it. She sighs and brushes at some dirt that comes off on his cuffs, but he ignores that as he starts fiddling with the gun. “I don’t think it’s _that_ bad, but it’s definitely going to have to come apart to get all of that out,” he says. “I still think it’s—”

“Ah, if you might—” The other highwayman raises his head, then yelps and ducks as the gun suddenly fires and sends a bullet whizzing about a foot left of him. He’s lost one of his guns, but still has the other, although it’s flat on the ground under him, where he’s down on both hands and one knee. He starts again, then pauses and puts one finger in his ear. Grimaces, pulls out the finger with a bit of blood on the end, and then turns a half-impressed, half-wary look on Stiles and Lydia. “—I do apologize for interrupting, but we were in the middle of—”

“So you’re a werewolf too, right?” Stiles says, jabbing the gun at the man’s bloody finger. When the man hisses, eyes a little unnaturally blue, and makes as if to dive into a bush, Stiles pulls the gun back and starts to apologize. Then stops. “Wait, you’re a werewolf, you have to be if your ears are healed already, and this one’s already been shot and—”

“And _regardless_ of whether or not the guns are any use, we obviously have ways of defending ourselves that don’t involve them,” Lydia breaks in, with a not-too-subtle kick at Stiles’ ankle. “So we’re not about to just turn over our valuables to you.”

“Fine,” comes a grunt from the wolf. Now a highwayman again, though he’s still tangled up in his clothes. He shoves himself up on one arm, making a face as his shirt rips and a whole swath of it falls away to show a very athletic physique underneath, and then jerks himself the rest of the way onto his knees. More rips appear in his clothes. “Fine, it’s early anyway, and this road’s not even the— _said_ we should’ve tried the old post road—”

Stiles looks at Lydia. “Well, I mean, we’ve got the money from the rooms we didn’t need to rent and a couple meals we didn’t eat, seeing as we’re coming back early.”

Lydia continues to stare down at the highwayman with the gun, who appears to be torn between wanting to glower at the other one and looking very appreciative about Stiles’ interjection. But the muscle in her jaw twitches.

“I’m only saying, it’s not like we’ll miss it, and they’re highwaymen! _Werewolf_ ones!” Stiles says, warming up to his topic. Because look, he’s well aware that he’s not a normal mortal nobleman, worried about going anywhere if he doesn’t have a small army to keep dust from settling on his finery, and he quite enjoys his life because of that, and he really does _not_ understand why nobody seems to agree with him. Even Scott, who would absolutely loop back to leave a moneybag after beating up a bunch of would-be robbers, if they had enough holes in their shoes. “It’s more entertaining than the seminar turned out to be, and besides, why would werewolves be holding up coaches anyway?”

Very slowly, so that the slide of the moonlight over her face emphasizes its firm, unyielding lines, Lydia pivots on her heel to face Stiles. She crosses her arms in front of her.

“Because we’re in the middle of the woods, there’s plenty for food, and you don’t need to rob people at gunpoint if you just need clothes or shelter, there are farmhouses for that, and this seems a little strange for a pack initiation ritual, whatever Erica wants me to believe,” Stiles goes on, doing his best to make his case to her. One of the werewolves moves and he flaps his hand at them to stay put so she doesn’t start glaring at them again. “They look pretty old for that, anyway. I mean, I guess they could be changing packs but then where’s the new alpha, shouldn’t they be roaring around here by now?”

“Or they don’t have one,” Lydia says. She immediately winces and shakes her head. Then sticks her finger in Stiles’ face. “No. No, no, _no_. Stiles, we are _not_ doing this.”

“You know, it’s exceedingly rude to speak of people in front of them as if they aren’t there.” The older of the werewolves finishes getting to his feet, then gives his breeches a couple swipes with one hand. He studies his leg, fingers the faint smears that are stubbornly clinging to the leather, and then sighs and straightens up, giving his disheveled, dark, curly hair an absent raking with his fingers as he does. “Particularly when it’s something as _intimate_ as pack arrangements.”

He really is good-looking. The act is an act, but, Stiles admits, it works for him. Even Lydia pauses before narrowing her eyes.

“So you are werewolves?” Stiles says.

“No,” says the other one, just as the one in front of Stiles opens his mouth.

They all look at him. He’s on his feet too, and has retreated as far towards the woods as he can get without actually disappearing into the bushes. He jerks his chin at the one in front of Stiles, then widens his eyes in irritation when the other man looks at him as if he’s being an idiot.

“Yes,” the man in front of Stiles says, still glaring at the other one.

Whose eyes widen even more. He whirls around toward Stiles and Lydia, claws out and hands half-up into slashing position. Then twists back to make angry gestures at his companion.

“Derek, for God’s sake, she’s a banshee and he’s…he’s…well, after the show you put on, if he didn’t know, he’d be such a fool that it wouldn’t really matter what we told him,” the man promptly snorts. Then sighs, and turns a much more pleasant expression on Stiles. “Though you are clearly much more knowledgeable than that, and of a generous nature too, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I thought it was going to charge me!” Derek snaps.

“Stiles, you are _not_ giving them our dinner money,” Lydia also snaps. She gives him another look, then rolls her eyes and just seizes him by the arm. “They’re incompetent omegas, giving them money is just going to encourage their incompetence, not do anything to improve—”

“ _Excuse me_ ,” the older werewolf says. Enough of a growl threads his voice that even Lydia stops, although her skepticism is undented. He stands very still, no little charming mannerisms now, until he’s sure that he has their full attention. Then he smiles, but there’s no charm in that either. Only a hard, sharp gleam, moonlight silvering his teeth with menace. “We are _not_ omegas. And you, whatever your connections, they clearly don’t run any deeper than that chamomile rinse you’re using if you’ve never heard of the Hales—”

Lydia turns completely around, her locks suddenly going from the claret the night has turned them to a molten, dark-defying red. “What. Did you say. About my _hair_ —” 

Just then, a series of wolf howls rise through the woods. The older werewolf makes a bitten-off, angry noise, glancing between them and the treeline. Then this Derek barks sharply at him—Derek’s already plunged into the brush, and is barely visible in silhouette—and the werewolf gives Stiles and Lydia one last look before abruptly whirling. In one inhuman leap, he’s left the road and vanished among the trees.

“I don’t think he was saying it was _fake_ ,” Stiles says, in the little bit of quiet they have before Scott and the rest of show up. “But, you know, the golden bits do come out when there’s a good moon out.”

“They’re supposed to,” Lydia says through gritted teeth. Then she really looks at him, and her expression softens. “Still no, Stiles.”

“I think it looks good either way, and it is kind of the only time you and Erica get along, when you two are washing each other’s hair,” Stiles adds. He reaches over and adjusts her dress, where it’s caught some dried grass without her noticing, and then grins as she rolls her eyes and steps up and starts fixing his cuffs. “Hales are one of the packs in the Domesday Annexes. Aren’t they?”

“Stiles.” Lydia reaches up and gives his cravat a hard yank, then loosens it as his eyes bulge. She still doesn’t look pleased with him, but she settles for just straightening his laces. “Well, at least see what the others say first, would you? If they’re that well-established, it shouldn’t take that long.”

He shrugs. “Sure, I’ll ask.”

* * *

“And you said there were just two of them?” Stiles’ father’s steward says, squatting down by a tree and feeling over its trunk. He finds something, grunts, and pulls out a hunting knife and uses its handle to scrape moss off the trunk. “Both men?”

Stiles sighs and drums his fingers impatiently against the side of the coach. “You—”

His father turns around and glowers at him.

“—are absolutely correct,” Stiles changes at the last moment, instead of pointing out that Chris has already asked that same question twice. Instead of giving him credit, his father rolls his eyes and then wanders off with Scott, who wants to show him something with the horses.

They’ve been calmed down and led off from the disabled coach, but judging from the concerned motions Scott is making towards their legs, they’re not going to be in any condition to ride off. One of the werewolves is probably going to have to lead them back to town, just in case the driver wants them back. Seeing as the driver’s run so far that Isaac left twenty minutes ago to track him and still hasn’t returned.

It is an excellent idea to clean up things and make sure that everyone is all right, and also see that nothing comes out of the night except another spooky country tale for when everybody’s gathered around the winter punch bowl. It is also taking forever, and nobody is answering Stiles’ questions. “So two werewolves, they swear they’re not omegas, but their alpha is nowhere to be seen,” Stiles says. “Also, the whole thing about being Hales?”

Chris frowns at the bare patch he’s scraped. He traces out short, parallel lines—claw marks—and then reaches behind him without looking and grabs Jackson’s arm. “Here, smell this,” he says.

“Could you wipe off your hands first? This is imported!” Jackson yelps.

When Chris lets go, he fusses with his sleeve as if it’s a wounded bird, and thus misses when Chris instead grabs the back of his head and shoves him just short of a smashed nose into the trunk. Then Chris turns around and looks at Stiles. “The Hales are one of the oldest werewolf families in the country,” he says over Jackson’s whimpering. “When the Domesday Book was being put together, they already had well-established territory in the Marches.”

“Yes, and, two of them appear to be robbing coaches on this road?” Stiles says.

Chris presses his lips together. He breathes in as if to add something, and then turns back to Jackson. “Fresh?”

“More or less,” Jackson mutters.

“Don’t be difficult, Jackson,” Lydia says, coming back from where she’d been changing into a riding skirt. She tucks her arm through Stiles’ arm, then smiles at Jackson so that he stiffens, then darts nervous looks between her and Chris. “Oh, it wasn’t so long ago that you knew _firsthand_ I’m worse than him. Just tell him what he wants to know and then go see what’s taking Erica and Boyd so long with the extra mounts.”

“Look, definitely within the day, but didn’t we already know that since they were just here?” Jackson rattles off. He lifts his head as if it’s a defiant thing to do, but pretty much ruins the act by slinking off behind Stiles so hurriedly that he trips.

Stiles puts out his hand and Jackson cringes from it, then makes a face when he realizes what Stiles was really trying to do. And then lopes off before anybody can yell at him.

“I’m trying to figure out whether this is a regular lair of theirs or not,” Chris says after a moment. He puts his hand back against the trunk, then sighs and steps to the side so that Stiles and Lydia can see what he’s been examining. “There haven’t been a lot of reports of robbers on this road.”

And, Stiles doesn’t miss, peering past them to see whether Stiles’ father is still busy with Scott. “No, but Derek was saying about he’d wanted to try the old post road that runs parallel to this instead, and there _have_ been a couple stories about people getting held up on that,” Stiles says. He leans in, looks at the scratch-marks—no spirals or other elaborate messaging, just business-like slashes to indicate height and strength—and then moves over for Lydia. And gives his own look over his shoulder, catching Scott’s eye and then jerking his chin at his father. “Also, you’ve been pretending for the past half-hour as if you don’t know anything beyond what’s in the public records and if you’ve really done half the things you told my father, that can’t be true.”

“If this isn’t a regular spot of theirs, then I have to wonder whether they decided to shift it on purpose, and whether that was because of either of you,” Chris says. Evenly enough, meeting Stiles’ eyes, and acting as if that is an entirely reasonable preoccupation to have.

“If they did, then they have sources with membership to the Royal Society and if that’s the case, the problem is going to be somewhat beyond your family’s influence,” Lydia says tartly. She gives the trunk the briefest of glances before walking past Chris. “Just answer Stiles’ question, would you? His father’s not _that_ sympathetic towards horses and I think we would all hate to drag up potentially embarrassing history in front of him. Wouldn’t we?”

Chris has the kind of face that Stiles thinks would beat golems hands-down when it comes to bluffing at cards, so little does it move. Not that it still isn’t obvious how little he appreciates Lydia’s needling. “Your father’s aware of my family history with the Hales,” he says to Stiles.

“Well, _I’m_ not.” Stiles steps up and stares Chris in the eye.

The other man stares back.

“Oh, for—look, I’m not accusing you of dragging us into…into whatever it is that you’re not telling us about, even though you’ll have to if you really did drag us in, because how would you avoid that? By going off on your own to fix it? And what always happens when you do that?” Stiles snaps, swinging back and then stalking around in a little circle. He’s not exactly losing his temper—he does respect Chris—but he’s definitely running short on patience. “Dad goes and gets you back, and it ends up an even bigger mess, and on top of that, you two use up _all_ the hot water and how you do that when we have a private hot spring is beyond—”

For some reason, Stiles always forgets that the easiest way to get Chris to talk is to mention Chris and Stiles’ father’s private consultations. “My sister hauled us into a pointless vendetta with that family,” Chris abruptly mutters. He starts rubbing and pulling at his nose, which doesn’t really hide the light flush on his cheeks. “A lot of people died, and we ended up making reparations to Talia, the alpha at the—and I _don’t_ know what’s happened to her, if her brother’s running loose.”

“Brother?” Lydia, who’d gone a few feet off into the brush, glances back at them.

“Peter. Sounds like he was the older one you ran into, and Derek’s Talia’s middle child, her only son.” Chris pauses and the embarrassment fades, to be replaced by a detached kind of curiosity, the hunter in him studying the lay of the land. “Neither of them were heirs, and if they’re both still betas, then Laura must not be around either…anyway, part of the truce was that we’d stay out of each other’s sight. I sent Allison off to France for school, and mostly worked down south, and they were supposed to stay in the Marches…I don’t know what they’re doing this far from their heartland.”

“Also, robbing people,” Stiles says. “Why would they need to, if they’ve got land of their own?”

Chris shakes his head. “They wouldn’t. Which is not a good sign.”

“Well, so we should probably find out what’s going on with that. At least to make sure things are stable, and we don’t have a whole cascade of packs challenging each other? Right?” Stiles points to the scratches on the tree, then looks up at his approaching father. “Hunt is one thing, war’s a completely different thing. Right?”

“War?” his father says sharply. Trailing behind him, Scott looks alarmed and then picks up the pace so when Stiles’ father reaches them, he’s already at Stiles’ side. “With werewolves?”

“I don’t think it can be that bad yet,” Chris says, blinking sharply. He lifts his hand as if to reach out and put it on Stiles’ father’s arm, then abruptly and awkwardly moves to sheath his knife instead. “If we haven’t gotten word…Peter and Derek can’t have been in the area that long. Scott, the other alphas would’ve mentioned it. Didn’t you just run a circuit?”

“Yes, and no, nobody said anything about unusual travelers. But I can ask again, soon as we get everybody home,” Scott says, looking both worried and determined.

“We should head back first, it’s too close to the full moon,” Stiles’ father mutters. He looks at Chris, who nods and starts to move off, and then he turns to Stiles. “Also, no.”

“What—I—I didn’t even ask!” Stiles sputters.

His father gives him an exasperated expression, pivoting on one heel, and then reaches out to clasp Scott’s shoulder. “Stiles, they’re werewolves, and no. We’ll see what they’re doing here, but that’s _it_. Scott, Chris and I left the knight two inns back, we need to go pick them up. Allison should meet you at the crossroads, can you take it to there?”

“Will do,” Scott promises.

Stiles’ father pauses and looks into Scott’s face; Scott lifts his chin and smiles reassuringly, and sure, he’s unique even among werewolves, starting with standing up against even the terrifying specter of the Wild Hunt as a mere cub, all the way through willing himself to alpha status. But it’s still Stiles’ father, and when he finally walks on, Scott lets out a little huff of relief.

And then turns around, frowning, as Stiles takes the opportunity to sidle off to where Lydia’s standing a few yards away. He sniffs, squints, and then hops over with a dismayed look on his face. “No, come on, we _just_ told your dad we’d go straight back,” Scott says.

“No, _you_ told him. I don’t remember speaking for myself, and you certainly don’t govern where I do and don’t go,” Lydia says. She brushes another clod of dirt off the key she’s found. “No rust, clearly just dropped.”

“Looks like an inn key,” Stiles says, prodding at it.

Scott lets out a small, slightly mournful noise. He’s far too optimistic to ever despair, but he does tend to revert to wolfcub noises around Stiles and Lydia, for some reason. “But—but Lydia, I thought you wanted to make sure we had enough rooms for when your mother visits,” he says. His face brightens as she hesitates. “When we get home, I’ll go ask around the alphas like I just said, and I’ll show them the key too.”

“Oh, for the love of crystal hills, you might as well ask them to send us the hides when they’re done,” Lydia snorts, pulling the key away from Scott’s hand. Then she slaps Stiles’ hand away, too, and before either of them can do anything, she has the key securely tucked away in her clothes. “We want to _talk_ to them, not exterminate them.”

“I didn’t—I wasn’t going to—the packs wouldn’t do that without telling us,” Scott protests. “I’d tell them we want to see them first.”

Scott also tends to think the best of werewolves, which Stiles has to admit is probably his fault for pulling Scott out of regular werewolf life so early on, and introducing his impressionable young mind to moral treatises. Really should’ve started him off on the more useful classics, like Machiavelli. “We’re leaders of the Hunt, remember, not leaders of everything _that_ hunts,” Stiles reminds him in a soothing tone. Gives him an arm around the shoulders, too. “Anyway, Chris is probably right and we need to ask whether they’ve heard anything, but I don’t think we have to let them know we’re asking because two Hales have popped up in the neighborhood. Plus it’s always good to ask the source, too…because we’re going to?”

“I _do_ want rooms free, and not closets we’ve done up in a hurry by kicking all the hairballs into the fireplaces,” Lydia says, with a glower past Stiles’ shoulder that makes some werewolf over by the coach whimper. Then she looks back at him and gives him a reluctant nod. “But one, I know I’ll never hear the end of it from you. And two…I’ll admit I am curious why werewolves with that kind of lineage are resorting to robbery. Especially since Peter seemed perfectly willing to negotiate, although _what_ he thought he’d have for bargaining leverage…”

“Well, isn’t that why we should just wait till we know more about them?” Scott tries. 

Stiles isn’t really listening to him. Which is a terrible thing to do to his best friend, and he knows that, and he’s still busy grinning at his fiancée anyway. “Some kind of equipment, judging from how much attention he was paying to your hair.”

“Not to mention your breeches,” Lydia returns. She whisks her fan out from wherever she hides it when she’s not smacking people with it, then brings it down sharply towards Stiles’ chest.

Being born into the Wild Hunt has admittedly given Stiles some unnatural reactions, at least compared to most. He winces but doesn’t move, and isn’t particularly surprised when Lydia pulls the force of the strike, with the fan’s end merely giving him a light tap under the collarbone. She rests it there for a second, then smiles at him. Then turns around, her skirts moving in a languid wave that just laps high enough to occasionally show a pretty boot.

“Stiles, I just—can I just ask?” Scott sighs, already sounding resigned to it. “Do you _really_ have to do this?”

“No,” Stiles says, and then he gives his friend a hard pat on the chest before unwinding his arm from Scott’s shoulders. “But come on! It’ll be fun!”

Scott lets out a dismayed whine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Way back in the day, before they figured out how to encapsulate the gunpowder in the bullets themselves, you had to load the powder separately and drop a spark in it to make the gun go off. If the powder got wet, the gun would misfire at best.
> 
> Domesday Annexes are a play on the Domesday Book. The Book's real, and let's just say the Annexes have all the supernatural stuff.
> 
> Highwaymen. I really wanted to put Derek and Peter in high-heeled over-the-knee boots and fancy dress with lace cravats and feathered hats and stuff. Peter would have the _best_ waistcoats.


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as Stiles’ father and Chris disappear over the horizon, Stiles and Lydia direct their pack…homewards. Because that is also the same direction as the nearest inn, and it turns out that Derek and Peter are good enough at masking their trail that it’s no use tracking by scent. So instead, they pull up in town and start asking whether anybody knows which inn or tavern or house the key might belong to.

Luckily, the key has a distinctive handle—not gilded or anything fancy like that, but it’s been wrought so that the loop has the faint appearance of being braided, which is enough to narrow it down to a tavern in the next town over. Which is a bit past the crossroads where they’re supposed to meet Chris’ daughter and deputy. 

Lydia doesn’t want to stop, pointing out that it’ll likely delay them longer and make their detour even more noticeable, but Scott responds that their being late will mean Allison will just come after them, and it’ll be easier if they get her and tell her what they’re doing. “ _And_ he’s hopelessly in love with her,” Lydia mutters as they finally ride into the right town.

Stiles glances over his shoulder, back where Allison is still looking very unhappy and ignoring Scott’s whispers. “Well, she’s mad enough that she’s coming along anyway, so I guess she really does love him back.”

“How wonderful,” Lydia says flatly. She heads into the stables behind the tavern, then stares the stablehand’s initial leer right out of his face. She swings herself out of the saddle while he’s still trying to gather her mount’s reins in shaking hands, then gives her skirts a good shake-out. “And whenever they’d like to bring that to Chris’ attention, the rest of us can finally exit the chivalric romance.”

“ _Whenever_ my father pays attention to this, I think he’ll be much more annoyed about you two going off on your own, when you were specifically told not to,” Allison says, stalking up to them. She’s wearing men’s clothes, and when she takes off her hat to let her thick braid fall down her back, the stablehand goes from cringing to gawking. “Look, I’m only coming along because it’s the Hales, and if they’re here for my father, I want to know.”

“Why would they be here for your father?” Stiles says. Then he holds his hands up and does his best to look inoffensive. “I honestly do not know. I tried to ask, and it looks like one of those things that makes your father look pained so then my father wants to cheer him up. You know.”

Allison flushes slightly, and then tries to cover it up by adjusting the dirk in her belt. “Well, my insane aunt killed some of them, so they complained about it to the druids. They also killed some of my family before they got around to that, but the druids said it was still my aunt’s fault, and my father agreed, seeing as he led them to one of her boltholes, and then it was supposed to be over and we weren’t supposed to fight anymore. But that’s what the _druids_ say.”

She has a healthy skepticism of the druids, which Stiles very much appreciates, seeing as over the centuries, that group has spent far too much time trying to arrange other people’s affairs and far too little remembering the supernatural powers for which they’re supposed to be acting as mediators. It’s one thing to live in the human world, like Stiles and his father do, and it’s an entirely different thing to act as if everything can be brought down to human scale. Some things just aren’t _made_ that way, and if you treat them as if they are, then usually a lot more people are going to die than ever would have if you’d just left well enough alone.

“Well, we don’t know they’re here for your father,” Scott says, coming up behind Allison. He puts a hand on her arm, and then smiles when she glances at him. “They didn’t say anything about that to Stiles or Lydia.”

“They didn’t have any idea what we are, let alone who. Not till I screamed,” Lydia says. She sounds a little distracted, and when Stiles looks over, she’s frowning at the tavern, her head slightly cocked in the way that means she’s communing with other banshees. “In fact, I’m quite sure they still haven’t recognized Stiles. Which is very strange indeed, with a pack that old…so are _you_ here for them?”

Allison frowns and starts to say for her father, of course, that’s what she’d just said, and then she thinks the better of it. She’s a quicker study than Scott when it comes to Lydia, Stiles does like that about her. “I just want to make sure they’re not going to start up the vendetta again,” she says, eyeing Lydia. “I’m not going to come after them if they’re not coming after us.”

“You aren’t feeling as if you need to scream, are you?” Scott says, looking worried. “You’re not sensing that any fight’s going to start?”

“Oh, _need_ to—no, I don’t. Not at the moment.” When Lydia smiles, she’s deliberately not trying to reassure Scott. She pulls out a small hand mirror, makes a minute adjustment to her hair and earrings, and then puts it away and swirls off towards the tavern’s back door. “Of course, if you’d like to reduce the chances of that happening, do feel free to wait outside.”

That is a little nasty, even for Lydia, and Stiles gives Scott and a very miffed Allison an apologetic face before hurrying after her. “You know, if you _wanted_ them to stay out of it and let us handle it—”

“Because I don’t, Stiles,” Lydia mutters to him in a bored tone. She pauses on the threshold to scrape some mud off her boots, then graciously allows him to get the door. “Obviously, I want them to insist on sticking close and not being left out of any moment, so when we explain to your father, he’ll understand this wasn’t merely you wandering off when one of us wasn’t looking.”

Stiles pushes at the door and it doesn’t budge an inch. Admittedly, he’s distracted by the malevolent brilliance of Lydia’s strategic planning, but when he tries again, it still doesn’t move. “On the one hand, I think it’s an excellent idea to take Allison’s suggestion and run it out to a full alternate rationale for this side-trip,” he grunts, regripping the handle and then making sure his bootheel is planted against the stone step, not the soft earth before it. “On the other—you know—Scott’s—kind of my—my _friend_ —”

The door suddenly gives way with a loud grinding of the hinges, and Stiles has to scamper up across the threshold to keep up with its swing and not fall on his face. Lydia floats serenely in behind him. “Well, and now he doesn’t have to work at reconciling protecting you against your curiosity with protecting his true love against her hereditary bloodthirstiness.”

She’s just—really, incredibly beautiful, Stiles thinks, watching her walk by him. Especially when she’s thinking farther ahead than he is.

But that’s no reason to put all the work on her shoulders, so Stiles shakes himself off and scrambles after her into the common room.

It’s…it’s pretty nice, is the first thought that Stiles has, upon looking around. Look, he’s aware that even when he’s not out running the Hunt, he doesn’t live like most people. But that doesn’t mean he’s a snob—on the contrary, if you can’t stand a little bit of roughing it, then you’re probably not going to be able to stand the Hunt. Even Jackson, particular as he is about his wardrobe, won’t actually shrivel up if he has to sleep on the dirt now and then. He’ll just complain to you about it all week.

That’s the outdoors, of course. When they’re indoors, they usually aren’t dropping in on any country tavern—at least, Stiles isn’t. He has his suspicions about his father and Chris when they go on overnight business trips, but he’s not staying in taverns. Actually, he can probably count on his fingers the number of times he’s slept away from a proper estate house, but again, it’s not really that he’s a snob. It’s just that having to go somewhere else doesn’t really come up.

So he’s a little inexperienced when it comes to taverns, and maybe gets most of his ideas from cheap yellow pamphlets and the stories he overhears from the household staff who have spent time off the estate. So he knows that, and understands that not _every_ tavern could be a stinking cesspool of skullduggery and murder. He still thinks that this one is unusual.

It’s got a planked floor, for one, and the planks are almost as shining-white as the floors at home. A roaring fire _is_ in the hearth, but the people clustered around it and scattered about the nearby common tables are neatly dressed and, except for a pair of men fiddling with some dice in the corner, aren’t gambling or threatening each other over their winnings or anything like that. And even the men dicing are doing so quietly, for what looks like matchsticks.

“Come for the pudding?” asks a maid.

“Gravy?” Scott pipes up, just as Stiles realizes the man’s come up behind him.

Lydia turns and looks at Scott, who flushes in shame over his near-addiction to certain condiments. Then he puts his hand out, but the maid’s already whisked off to rub her rag over an already-clean end of one table.

Somebody else stops her. The man who’s probably Peter Hale, smiling and half-risen from where he’s been eating at another table. “Oh, no need, we’ve saved places here,” he says.

The maid shrugs and disappears into the kitchen, while Peter stays on his feet and gestures to the empty bench on the other side of his table. Stiles and Lydia look at each other, and then Stiles offers her his arm. When she takes it, he walks her across the room and up to Peter.

“I beg your pardon at the late introductions,” Peter says with a smile. “I’m Peter Hale, and I am very pleased to be able to remake your acquaintance…”

“Lord Stilinski, Earl of Cornwall, and Lady Martin, of the Connacht Martins,” Allison interjects.

Peter’s eyes flick to her. It’s not dismissive, although he clearly doesn’t rate her. He’s aware she’s no mere servant. “And the youngest and _latest_ of the Argents,” he confirms in a very dry tone. He stares at her till Allison’s composure slips and she clicks her nails against whatever weapon she’s holding onto under her cloak, and then he gives them all an amused smile. “Well, I really wasn’t looking to spoil my dinner with fisticuffs, especially since tonight is pudding night.”

“Pudding?” Stiles repeats.

Scott just about stifles a hungry noise behind him. It _does_ smell delicious, whatever they’re cooking, and that’s another thing that’s out of line with everything that Stiles has ever read or heard about taverns. There are people eating here, and they look very much like they’re _enjoying_ the food. Maybe, even, that that’s why they’ve come.

“Oh, yes, they’re famous for their Yorkshire pudding and beef roast,” Peter says. He gestures at the half-eaten plate in front of him. His hand happens to catch a crumpled napkin, knocking it off the edge of the table, and he grabs it, then tips a mildly embarrassed face at Stiles as he shakes out the napkin. “Quite moist, very tender…and the pudding is like clouds in your mouth. Really, I wouldn’t stay at any other place in the county, if I could help it.”

“And you don’t, I see,” Lydia says. She has that little edge in her voice that means she thinks someone is edging too close to something of hers, and then her hand moves from Stiles’ elbow to his upper arm. Just before, smiling, she offers her hand to Peter.

He switches his gaze to her, expression assessing for the barest instant, before he takes her hand and bends over it to kiss its back. He’s smiling with his lips together, and even so, something about the way he does it feels extremely improper. Stiles catches himself glancing around to see whether any of the other people in the tavern are watching—they aren’t—and then has to put his hand back as Scott lets out a soft growl.

“Really?” Peter sighs as he straightens up. He leans forward over the table for a moment, locking eyes with Scott, and then he sniffs contemptuously as he backs off. “Well, all right, I suppose if you’d like to have us all thrown out, and then ride off on those fine horses and leave us to deal with the calls about demons and monsters, that’s befitting your obvious _rank_.”

“We just came to give you back your key, all right?” Stiles says, quietly but firmly. “So leave Scott alone. He’s not ranking anyway.”

Peter blinks and that appears to be genuine surprise in his eyes. “Key?”

“You dropped it. Well, actually, Derek, I think…” Stiles reaches into his pocket and doesn’t find anything, and panics for a second before Lydia pulls the key out of his other pocket. “Oh, right, that one. Anyway, thought you might want it back.”

“And _you_ seemed to think we might want a taste of this famous pudding,” Lydia says, offering the key to Peter.

“Oh, yes. I did think you might be turning up soon, though I’ll admit I assumed it’d be due to the pack trailing at your heels, rather than an altruistic impulse,” Peter says. He takes the key and then looks at it. Then he flicks it around in his hand, making it vanish up his sleeve, as he looks back up at Stiles and Lydia. “Hence the attempt at a welcome, even if it’s a rather poor one. I’m afraid I don’t currently have the resources for proper entertaining.”

Just then, the maid comes back with a heavy tray of plates and foamy mugs of beer, which she briskly lays out on the far side of the table from Peter. When she gets to the place right in front of Lydia, she hesitates for a moment and Lydia sighs and takes the mug from her hand.

“You’re out of your territory,” Allison comments as she warily takes a seat. “Is that why? That you don’t have the resources?”

Peter had been watching the byplay between Lydia and the maid and he’s annoyed at having that interrupted. Then he realizes who’d asked and he visibly recalibrates his reaction: he’s still annoyed but there’s a sarcastic edge to it, rather than plain petulance. “I wasn’t aware that your family was still in the business of making my family your business.”

“We’re just curious,” Stiles hastily says, before the two of them can get too far into that. He pulls out Lydia’s chair for her, then takes a seat and pulls his plate over. Then looks up at Peter, who’s now the only one of them still standing. “You mentioned your family name before you ran off, and we recognized it, and—”

“You are a long way from the Marches. That is a fact,” Lydia says. She removes her gloves and then delicately folds back her sleeves. “And robbery’s an unusual occupation. Especially if you’re then spending the money in establishments of this quality.”

When she and Stiles pull out eating knives and Peter realizes they aren’t merely tired of standing, or being polite, but actually mean to join his meal, he…is surprised again. Suspicious, Stiles thinks, but also there’s something softer, something that Peter’s annoyed to show, even as he smooths the charm back over his face.

“Well, appearances can be deceiving,” Peter says after a short pause. He sits down himself, and even cuts a bite and eats it and washes it down with a swallow of beer before going on. “I suppose we’ve broken a law or two, but unfortunately, that can be necessary when the legal system offers you no recourse to right a wrong done to you.”

“If this is about—” Allison starts.

“It is _not_ about your family.” Peter pauses again, not looking down the table at her but not looking at Stiles or Lydia, the two sitting in front of him, either. Then he takes a deep breath, but he’s obviously still reining in his temper. “It is truly aggravating, how self-centered your line is. Even aside from the blatant hypocrisy, and naked power-grabbing, and sheer mercilessness—we had _children_ at home, if you’re old enough now for your elders to be truthful with you—how you constantly insist that every possible situation _must_ be about—”

“All right, all right, never mind,” Stiles interrupts. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Allison unhappily reseating herself. He does feel for her, a little; he gets blamed all the time for things that leaders of the Hunt did generations ago, and sure, they _did_ it, but on the other hand, the Hunt moves on, and so does the rest of the world. But also, frankly, he just wants to get to the point, and the point clearly isn’t the Argents. “So if you weren’t robbing people, what were you doing out there?”

“I never said we weren’t robbing people,” Peter says, promptly smirking when Stiles stares at him in disbelief. But before Stiles can revise his decision to spare Peter a full-scale Allison protest—with Scott always mounting a good chorus—the man drops the amusement. “But the goal wasn’t mere money. I told you, we aren’t omegas. Our family’s been paying homage to the moon for likely as long as you and yours—” he nods to Lydia “—have been heralding deaths. With that sort of history, even without an alpha we’re quite capable of supporting ourselves.”

Lydia’s starting to lose her patience, says the tap-tap of her knife against the rim of her plate. “Then your goal really was…”

“Merely to seek the return of what is rightfully ours in the first place,” Peter says. He looks at her, in perfect solemnity, and then twists slightly to give the same look to Stiles. There’s an intensity to his gaze that’s a little unnerving—how spare it is, after all the elaboration he’s gotten them accustomed to in such a short time. And then he smiles again, and that smile of his, pleasant and inviting, makes for such a seamless shutter that Stiles has to admire that. “And you? What brings a banshee and an Emissary out in the woods, without their pack?”

“I’m actually not—” Stiles starts, because that’s what _everybody_ thinks when they first see the werewolves, but then somebody kicks him hard in the shin.

For once it’s not Lydia, who looks puzzled and a little offended when Stiles instinctively turns towards her. Then he realizes the blow came on the opposite side of her and he frowns and looks at—at Scott? Scott kicked him?

“If you think we have something of yours, you can just tell Stiles, and he and his father will look into it,” Scott says. He’s his usual earnest self, but he’s also posturing, his back straight and his shoulders spread, and he doesn’t usually do that with other werewolves. “You don’t have to keep setting up ambushes.”

Peter frowns. “I _believe_ I’m buying you dinner. Despite your continued threats.”

“Then why is Derek hiding up there?” Allison says. 

There’s a loud thump over their heads, and then a light patter of sawdust falls down from the ceiling beam. Stiles grimaces and lifts his arm to block it from the food, but Lydia gets there first, flicking her fan out to cover both their plates while giving Peter a pair of arched brows.

“He’s eavesdropping,” Peter says flatly. He’s got a tone to his voice that Stiles feels more than hears, a kind of low vibration, and that makes Scott tense up, though whatever mood it’s signaling, that seems to be directed at the absent Derek. “He’s hardly going to smash through the planks and jump down on all of us. For one, he knows how much I hate it when my meals are interrupted.”

“It is a really good pudding,” Stiles admits. When he forks up a piece, the gravy sopped into the side drips down onto his hand and he doesn’t have time to get it with his other hand before it runs into his cuff, so he licks it off. And then looks up just in time to catch Peter studying him with more interest than the man probably should be showing, in public, in front of Lydia and Scott, and when neither of those two seem to buying any of the goods that Peter’s flaunting.

Although Lydia’s not exactly dismissing the _view_ , considering she only snaps her fan shut so that the tip almost swings at Peter’s nose, and doesn’t actually connect to damage anything. She puts it away with a little smile as Peter flinches back, then hastily composes himself. “ _We_ do have an interest in the more esoteric branches of knowledge, but that doesn’t necessarily tie us to a named pack,” Lydia says, looking back up. “Consider us unaffiliated, if that was your concern.”

Good point, all that pack politics, and Peter’s just all but confirmed that he and his nephew currently aren’t answering to an alpha. Stiles sneaks his hand under the table and squeezes Lydia’s hand in thanks for catching that one. She doesn’t squeeze back, but a moment later, he feels her foot push her skirts out of the way and press up against his ankle.

“Present company notwithstanding?” Peter says, polite but skeptical. He nods in Scott’s direction.

It’s on the tip of Stiles’ tongue to point out that Peter’s been acting the whole time as if he doesn’t need to worry about Scott, and if Peter really thought Scott was the leader—but he catches that one himself. He’s so used to his friends that he sometimes forgets they all ended up with the Hunt because of how they _didn’t_ fit into regular werewolf hierarchy, but he can do the political thing too. When he does remember.

“Scott’s a longtime friend of the family,” he tells Peter with a shrug, trusting that Scott won’t mind the understatement. “Anyway, he’s here because of that, but if you think my family’s got something of yours—”

“It wasn’t you in particular, it’s simply that particular hired coach,” Peter says. He pauses, watching them, and then inhales a little as if bracing himself to go on. He doesn’t actually look that uncertain of himself—which perversely makes it more likely that he’s genuinely hesitating, since he’s been playing up his harmlessness since they walked in. “The thief we’re looking for is a regular customer of theirs.”

Allison makes a disbelieving noise—though she’s eaten a good half of her serving, Stiles notes. “So it’s just a case of wrong place, wrong time?”

“So it appears,” Peter says pleasantly, and then he hesitates again, but this time it’s all show, his eyes flicking over Stiles and Lydia before he leans forward. “Unless this could instead be the beginning of a possible mutual interest?”

Lydia appears to be waiting for him to go on, but there’s a warning click from under the table, where her fan’s hung at her waist.

“In eliminating a dangerous element in the neighborhood,” Peter clarifies, with a mock-nod of apology. He holds Lydia’s gaze till she clicks the fan again, then goes on, with a slight burr of humor in his voice. “The thief in question not only stole a family heirloom, but he’s also a rogue of our kind, and one known to turn on his own. In fact, he either killed, or ordered to be killed, his entire pack, and he’s caused the destruction of several others besides.”

“Yours too?” Stiles asks impulsively.

Peter goes completely still. Even his expression is frozen mid-chuckle, and that alone would be eerie, before you even got to the sudden glassiness in his eyes. It’s more than a raw spot, and when Stiles really thinks about why that’d be so, he suddenly wishes he’d…well, he probably still would’ve asked, but he could’ve done it more nicely. They’re still pretty much strangers to each other, and Peter hasn’t seriously tried to hurt them yet, and all in all, he’s been quite civil.

“He was one factor,” Peter finally says. The glassy look is gone, his face and body relaxing so suddenly that his previous stiffness almost seems to have been imaginary. Except that he’s now picking his words with more care than they’ve seen from him yet. “Among many, and admittedly, he showed up near the end, but he certainly provided no help, against his prior word—but that’s quite old history at this point, and hardly of interest to you, I’d think. More relevant is that I understand he’s searching madly for a certain ritual, something that’ll rid him of the vengeful spirits that are plaguing him.”

“Spirits?” Stiles says. He was already paying attention, but that puts him on alert. Lydia and Scott too—Lydia because of what she is, and Scott because he knows that if it’s got to do with the dead, there’s a good chance it and the Hunt will cross paths.

“His various and numerous victims. Our kind, they do not take vengeance lightly, and after all, death isn’t so much of a barrier as you’d expect,” Peter says. His tone is still mild, but it’s taken on a color of relish that…honestly, rather suits him. Then he suddenly is brisk, turning back to his food and taking the last remnant of his pudding and chasing it around the plate to soak up the remaining gravy. “A haunted man these days, Deucalion Blackwood. Not a change of heart, of course, he simply wants to be rid of them. That’s why he stole from us, because our family had knowledge of a way to dismiss even the most persistent ghosts and prevent them from ever returning. Is that one of the esoteric branches you mentioned?”

Lydia glances at Stiles before she answers. “Well, it’s one we’re aware of,” she says carefully. “Deucalion Blackwood. And you’d like this family heirloom he took?”

“That and his heart to roast.” Peter smiles thinly at them. “But I’m a pragmatist, and he has more than myself and Derek after him, some of whom have more extensive resources than we do at the moment. I’ll settle for the heirloom.”

“It’s not a vendetta, in that case?” Allison suddenly asks.

“As I said, I’m a pragmatist,” Peter says, and then he looks down the table at her. “He leaves quite the path of destruction behind him, in my experience. It really is to the benefit of all that he’s stopped, however that’s done—and by whomever.”

“Well, we’ll take it under consideration and make some inquiries,” Stiles says. Not promising to inquire about what Peter would obviously like them to inquire about, but Peter smiles at him as if the man knows Stiles is leaving out the double-checking of his story they’ll do first. “We can leave messages for you here?”

Peter shrugs. “If you’d like, or we could arrange something more convenient to you, if you have suggestions as to a method.”

“We’ll take that under consideration,” Lydia says. Then she inclines her head towards her plate. “The quality was as promised, and I suppose your behavior earlier is now understandable. We’ll refrain from making reports to the local constable as well, for the time being.”

“Thanks for the meal,” Stiles adds, even though he knows Lydia left that out on purpose. She’s already glaring at the side of his head.

“Oh, the pleasure was very much mine,” Peter says, smiling again. “Very much.”

* * *

“I was trying to not be rude! I mean, he did pay for it, and it was good food, and I know he held us up and all but he was sort of apologizing for it,” Stiles says later, as Lydia is _still_ glaring at him. “You’re always telling me to improve my manners!”

His father sighs, and when Stiles makes the mistake of looking over, reminds Stiles that Lydia is not the only person who is unhappy with him right now. “That’s not really the point,” his father starts.

“He did _not_ apologize. He didn’t even come close,” Lydia says.

Stiles’ dad clears his throat. He’s got a way of looking at you that just…expresses how he’s not being malicious about it or anything like that, but he was still expecting a little more from you. Even Lydia can’t withstand that and she flushes a little, then bows her head.

“Look, I know…I know you were…whatever it was, I know you had good intentions about it,” Stiles’ dad says. He starts taking off his coat as he does, folding it over one arm and then tugging at his cravat and vest, too. From the little showers of dust that come off the coat, he and Chris spent most of the night on the road, which just makes Stiles feel that much guiltier about the side-trip. “But first of all, I asked you to go straight home, so I’d only have to worry about whether the damn knight would still be where we left him.”

“We…told Scott and Allison they could go tell you where we were going,” Stiles says. Weakly.

His father just keeps giving him that look. “And did you really think they were going to leave you? Of course not, and then Chris and I had to worry about whether the old feud with his family and the Hales was opening up again. And—” Stiles’ dad raises his hand “—fine, this Peter says it hasn’t, but my point is, there’s clearly a lot going on here, and we need to understand what that all is _before_ we dive into it. All right?”

“I—yes, Dad,” Stiles sighs, his protest dying even as it crawls out of his mouth. He glances at the ground, absently rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re back safe, both of you.” Stiles’ father reaches out and wraps his arm around Stiles’ shoulders, pulling him in for a hug, and from the way his voice lifts, Stiles knows the man is giving Lydia a smile, too. “Now go to bed, and _stay_ there, would you? We can talk more over breakfast, but right now—what’s the matter?”

He’s speaking to somebody else, and when Stiles twists around, a rumpled, weary Chris comes up to them, holding out a human tibia. “It doesn’t match,” Chris mutters.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t match?” Stiles’ father says, stepping away from Stiles, and then he grimaces. “Damn it. You mean—”

Chris also looks frustrated. “He has his two already, so where this one comes from…” 

“We lost _another_ knight?” Lydia says, incredulous. “That’s the third this week!”

“They are wandering off an _awful_ lot lately, you know,” Stiles says thoughtfully. “You know, I wonder, Peter never did get around to mentioning the exact ritual that this Blackwood is trying to carry out, but if it’s related to restless dead—”

“Stiles,” his father says sharply. And then, upon looking at Stiles, his father…softens without looking the least bit more likely to reverse himself. “Look, it’s a good point, something to check on, but…let’s have a plan first. Walking in to see what someone does is not a plan.”

“He probably didn’t tell you on purpose,” Chris adds. He sounds a little reluctant about it, but clearly thinks he’s got a duty to speak up. “I remember Peter, he was always trying to lure people into things. Which doesn’t mean that he won’t tell you true things, but there’s always something else behind it.”

Stiles opens his mouth. Then shuts it, and _before_ Lydia steps on his foot, because he did have his father for years and years before she and he got engaged and he knows when his father’s not going to change his mind. Lost causes never got people anywhere but lost. “Well, if you’re going out again, watch out,” he says.

His father gives him a smile and a ruffle of the hair, and then sends him and Lydia off. Before they’re even out of the hall, Chris and Stiles’ father are already talking about how best to sweep the countryside, considering most of the werewolves are worn out and the other knights can’t exactly be trusted to stay where you expect them to. It’s a really interesting problem, actually, and Stiles needs to not think about it because that’s not the point.

“Point’s to _go to bed_ , my lord and lady,” Erica comments. She’s on the stair landing above them, leaning against the wall, and when they get close enough, she swings in to elbow her way between Stiles and Lydia. “Safe and sound and—hey! I’m just getting him to bed, I’m not getting him _in_ bed.”

“Well, appearances can be deceiving,” Lydia says, with a pointed jab of her fan. “And at the moment, they certainly don’t seem to match your stated intentions.”

“Because—ow!” Erica’s taken Stiles by the arm, not Lydia. She also ends up taking Lydia’s prods, despite her attempts to dodge, and finally ends up circling around to hang off Stiles’ other arm, crowding up against him as Lydia simply leans around to reach her. “Because—I don’t know how else we’re—ow, Lydia, honestly—we’re supposed to keep him indoors, and believe me, that’s the mission. Your dad was _not_ happy with Scott. Or Allison.”

Stiles grimaces guiltily. “It was all my fault.”

“Ours,” Lydia says, as if it’s a worse offense to leave her out.

Erica rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Either way, I have one job for the rest of the night, and that’s making sure you both go to bed, _separately_ , without any more uproar.”

“We’re engaged,” Stiles reminds her. Painstakingly, literally so, because her grip is getting rather tight.

“As if I can’t keep an eye on my own virtue,” Lydia sniffs.

“Oh, I think you keep both eyes on it, and then have some other looks, too,” Erica mutters, as she continues to march Stiles up the stairs and Lydia irritably accompanies them. “Not that I’d normally judge you for it, but I just don’t want to end up on toe-bone-finding duty, all right? So can you just go to bed, and put off whatever you’re planning to do for a few hours? At least? We run good hunts for you, can’t we get a nap once in a while?”

That’s to Stiles, not to Lydia, since Lydia would just consider that another unspoken part of their duties. “All right, all right,” Stiles says, putting up his free hand. “We’ve gone out enough tonight anyway.”

“Indeed,” Lydia says. And then she thwaps Erica again, when Erica relaxes too much and lets her arm move within reach. “Now let my fiancée _go_.”

They’re just about at Stiles’ bedroom door anyway, so Erica happily does so. She does still stand guard until, suppressing his own eye-roll, Stiles unlocks the door and steps over the threshold, and pulls shut the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have a thing for Stiles and Lydia scheming together.
> 
> Way back in the day, nobility didn't stay at hotels or taverns. They usually just crashed with each other.
> 
> [Yorkshire pudding](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/feb/16/how-make-perfect-yorkshire-puddings) is savory, and is actually a baked dish.
> 
> Cornwall's because they have a Wild Hunt tradition, and Connacht is for Maeve, its Warrior Queen.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles doesn’t go out again. He wasn’t _lying_.

He does leave his room, since he never promised he’d stay there. Well, first he washes up and changes into a looser pair of trousers and shirt, so if necessary, he can credibly claim he wasn’t even close to going out, he was just getting something from the kitchen. Then he sneaks out and hops over to Lydia’s room. Which involves going in the opposite direction of the kitchen, plus up one floor and then down, courtesy of a servants’ passage tucked into the walls and then a secret tunnel between floors, but anyway, nobody catches him. And he doesn’t actually go out of the house at any point.

Lydia isn’t there.

A fire’s lit in the hearth and candles are set up as if she’d been meaning to write at her desk, but the pen nib there isn’t wet. Stiles frowns and pokes his head into the adjoining boudoir and bath, but she isn’t there either. He retreats back to the bedroom and is working out the best way to get to the library—the next most likely location—when he realizes the runes around the balcony doors are glowing. Someone’s sneaking up the wall towards it.

They’re not signaling hostility. In fact, they’re lighting up as if it’s just a nuisance animal, like a particularly determined badger—the vines are very thick on that wall; it’s happened—but whatever it is, it’s moving much too fast to be something that size. Which means they must be using enough magic to partly block them from being detecting, and _that_ means they’re human.

Stiles isn’t actually hellbent on getting himself into trouble, or willing to trust just anybody. Or forgetful of the fact that outside of the full moon, he’s not invincible or invulnerable. So he gets a poker from the fireplace, a nice big silver platter from the sideboard, and then he slips out onto the balcony.

Outside the shivering vines make it obvious which side the intruder’s going to come up on—and then they stop shivering. Completely.

Frowning, Stiles ducks back in and looks at the runes: they’re still lighting up. He goes back out onto the balcony and gets a few steps towards that side of the rail, then thinks the better of it and instead goes to the other side, leans over with the platter, and slings it so it spins around the corner of the balcony. It’s a small balcony.

The platter disappears into the thick vines with a whirring noise, which suddenly turns to a muffled _bong_ as it hits something. A second later, the platter bounces hard away from the far side of the balcony, falls, takes another bounce off a gable, and finally clatters down the roof to land somewhere on the back lawn. Also, somebody’s making muffled grunting noises.

They stop as Stiles turns around. Stiles waits for a few seconds, and when nothing else happens, he sighs. “All right, come on,” he says, bringing the poker around before him like a sword as he faces that side of the railing. “Either you’re going down, which means whoever’s on stable duty tonight is probably going to end up chasing you into the woods, or you’re coming up and telling me why I shouldn’t let Lydia deal with you instead.”

For another few seconds the silence goes on, till it’s almost long enough for Stiles to lose patience and just go over there and take a look. And then, just as he’s about to take a step, he hears a kind of resigned mutter. The vines start shaking again and it’s not long before two hands and a head appear over the railing.

It’s…Derek. Stiles thinks. It’s a bit hard to tell, since it’s night and the man is dark-haired and a bit swarthy in complexion—and also because the moment he and Stiles lock eyes, he immediately ducks so that barely his hair is showing over the railing. Stiles tilts his head, confused, and then remembers he’s holding out the poker and lets out a sheepish laugh. While lowering the poker _half_ way, because again, he’s not suicidal.

“Look, I won’t swing at you if you don’t do something stupid, like—like try to maul me. Or get mud on her Turkish rugs,” he tells the other man. “But if you keep hanging there, somebody’s going to notice. I mean, honestly, you’ve probably got another minute, tops, before somebody comes out to look into the platter. That was pretty loud.”

Derek thinks it over, and then he’s suddenly over the railing and crouched down across from Stiles. Who twitches up the poker because sure, he’s used to werewolves but that was exceptionally swift and smooth. “I thought you weren’t going to swing at me,” Derek says, eyeing the poker.

“If you didn’t do anything stupid,” Stiles hisses at him, feeling embarrassed and _annoyed_ about it because he is not in the wrong here. Not even close. “Spooking the owner of the castle you’re breaking into? When he’s just caught you climbing up into your fiancée’s bedroom? A lot of people would—”

“What?” Derek says, frowning. “This _isn’t_ your room?”

Stiles stops and blinks. “No? I—why would you—were you trying to find mine?”

“It smells like metal and acid,” Derek says, blinking back. He gestures vaguely to the bedroom, then pushes up so he can crane around and look through the still-open door.

“Oh, you know what? I bet that’s the scorpion she’s been playing around with,” Stiles says. He pops back into the bedroom and pushes aside a couple discarded robes, then opens up the storage chest and lifts out one of the barbed bolts just as Derek follows him into the room. “See—hey, hey, it’s not loaded.”

Derek’s already jumped back outside, but he’s kind of quick about peering around the jamb, for how annoyed he looks. “Well, if you have that, why would you take out a poker?”

“Because…Lydia doesn’t like it when I rearrange her experiments?” Stiles says. Speaking of which, he grimaces and pulls out a handkerchief, hastily wiping down the bolt before he puts it back in its rack and shuts the chest. Then he stands back and tries to remember the order in which the robes were lying on top of it. “Anyway, so you _weren’t_ looking for her, you were looking for me, which means Peter’s looking for her?”

Stiles is very proud of how he just slips that in, no show-off dramatics, just plain logic, and then Derek just—gives him a look, not like how shocked the man is at Stiles’ insight, but like Derek thinks Stiles is proposing they run off and get married right now. “No, _he_ thought your room would be the one that smelled of herbs and ink and stuff like that.”

“Oh.” After he’s run through what he’s got hanging in his drying cabinet, Stiles has to give the werewolves that one. “Well, probably, but—wait, but why are you both trying to sneak into my bedroom? I thought we were going to leave messages for each other, you know, like an alliance by correspondence? Though look, nobody’s really agreed to do anything except be open to more talks, because it’s been just a couple hours and I haven’t even gotten around to look—ask—um—”

It occurs to Stiles that it’s not only rude to tell somebody to their face that he’s double-checking what they’ve told him, but that also gives away some of his strategy. So he’s trying to reword himself on the fly when Derek suddenly lets out an impatient noise and rakes one hand back over his face.

“This is a stupid idea,” Derek tells him.

“…which?” Stiles says after a moment, mostly because he doesn’t know what to do with that, so his mind goes on as it’s been going, trying to figure how what to say while he’s saying it. “I mean, the—correspondence, or the poker, or the bedroom mix-up, or—”

Derek starts a little, as if maybe he’d not actually been talking to Stiles. He pulls his hand down and looks warily at Stiles, and then his eyes go to the balcony. He even shifts back on his feet, setting himself up to go for the door. But then his head cocks to the side and somebody must be out on the back lawn, because he settles back in place, looking unhappy and nervous about it.

“We…we came to…see,” Derek finally says. “If you were—what pack it was.”

“You probably could’ve gotten that from just walking around in the woods and looking at the scratches on the trees, couldn’t you?” Stiles has to point out.

Clearly, Derek agrees with that, and even more clearly, he’s not about to admit it. Just sets his jaw to extra-firm, which doesn’t cover it up a bit but which does suit his profile, Stiles has to admit. “Deucalion’s a good talker,” he mutters. “And you didn’t look that surprised about any of this, so we were just—seeing if maybe he’s gotten to you already.”

“Well, if you think I’m allied with him, doesn’t that make it a bad idea to sneak in here without knowing where you’re going? What if you ran into him?” Stiles says.

“It wasn’t even my idea, I just—” Derek’s voice rises a little in irritation, but then he must hear something from outside again because he suddenly shuts his mouth and glances that way.

“Oh, it’s fine, they can’t hear from outside, even with the door open,” Stiles says, side-stepping towards the door. “Lydia’s got spells on for that, she hates eavesdroppers. She doesn’t block smell because then people know not to interrupt her when she’s in the middle of testing something.”

Oddly, Derek doesn’t look reassured in the least. If anything, he looks even more uneasy, shifting from foot to foot as Stiles moves, and when Stiles reaches out to touch the door, he twitches so that for a moment, it looks like he might lunge for it. Then he draws back and breathes in roughly, which doesn’t seem to settle him at all.

“Look, I’ll just…leave,” he says. “I didn’t do anything, and I don’t think you are talking to him, so I don’t—there’s not really anything to do here.”

“We’re not. We don’t really affiliate with any one pack,” Stiles says. He leaves his hand on the door for another second, then tries something and takes it off. “I mean, sure, we’ve got werewolves running with us, but they all left their packs.”

“Your friend’s an alpha,” Derek says with a frown. He’s a little calmer, but Stiles thinks that might be because he’s distracted, not because Stiles is farther from the door. “Scott. That one.”

Stiles sighs. “Well, Scott’s a special case, and I guess you could say the other ones…um, listen to him. Sometimes. When we make—I mean, he looks after people, but that’s not just werewolves, that’s—anyway, my point is—”

“And what do you mean, running with you?” Derek asks. His eyes finally leave the door and then take in the rest of the room as if he’s just now paying attention to it. He pauses at the alchemical apparatus Lydia has set up in the corner, and then again at the ancient Roman eagle hanging on the wall, a gift to her that Stiles pulled out of the family archives. “Do you mean you go out hunting with them? I thought you said you weren’t an Emissary.”

“I’m not. If we’re defining an Emissary as a pack’s non-werewolf representative and liaison to outsiders. One, like I said, this isn’t a traditional pack—” Stiles starts.

Derek suddenly lets out a derisive snort. “It’s still a pack. I saw the way they move when they’re searching, they’re a pack.”

“So what are you doing in the wrong bedroom, if you know everything?” Stiles snaps, annoyed. He might be a little protective of the werewolves who’ve chosen to live with him, and that’s because maybe his manners can be sloppy and he doesn’t always think things through, but he _does_ know werewolves now, and he knows what they gave up to come run with him.

“It was Peter’s idea, just seeing if you were helping him, and hiding it for him,” Derek answers, with surprising forthrightness. He does notice that Stiles is annoyed, because when Stiles turns, he slides over a few inches so that his flank won’t be exposed and they’ll continue to face each other. But despite that, he finally seems to be relaxing. “One thing about Deucalion after he went rogue is he’ll use anybody who lets him. We’ve seen him work with renegade druids and even hunters.”

“Well, I’m not, and actually I hadn’t even really heard of him before you two brought him up,” Stiles says. By now he’s wondering if he should just make Derek leave and go find Lydia. If Peter’s sneaking around too, well, at this rate Stiles might just let somebody else find him, for all that he’s learning. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’ve got my own castle and manpower and lots of weapons. And magic. And a couple Argents. Do you really think we’re the kind of people who would let ourselves be used by a packless alpha?”

Derek shrugs. Threatening him apparently is what it takes to make him comfortable, because he’s even calmer now. It reminds Stiles of Jackson back when he and Lydia were sort of courting—the man never would take Lydia seriously, no matter what she said, and for a while she seemed to take that as a challenge, or as a good sign that he wasn’t scared off. But ultimately—and Jackson’s even admitted this once, when drunk on one of Boyd’s wolfsbane-spiked brews—it was just a failure to care when he was in danger.

Of course, Jackson’s mistake was to think the danger was never going to come to fruition. Somehow, Stiles doesn’t think that that’s Derek’s issue. 

“I’ve seen him threaten a lot of people you wouldn’t think would cave,” Derek says. “He finds out what you care about most, he’s good at that.” 

“Well, if he wants to try that with us, good luck,” Stiles snorts. “We’ve got a whole storeroom of people who’ve tried it and left their battle standards behind.”

Derek cocks his head, looking curiously at Stiles. He sniffs a little, and then his expression turns bemused. “You really mean that. And you’ve got an alpha around, you’d know what they can do.” He pauses just enough long for Stiles to start to say that yes, he means it, now it’s been a nice talk but Stiles has some other rooms to be in tonight, and then he clears his throat. “He took my mother’s claws.”

“—and behind that staircase there’s a passage to the…wait. Wait, what did you say?” Stiles says, blinking. “Your—your _mother’s_ claws?”

“She’s dead,” Derek says, very bluntly, without much outward emotion. In the planes of his face, anyway—they’re so still they could have been carved from stone. But his eyes, for a second they glitter with something that might be wetness. And then they keep glittering, but it’s a hard, dry, angry glitter. “We found her grave opened up one day, and her claws were missing. He’s been lurking around and he knew—she knew things, she was the only one, and she died too suddenly to pass them on. She knew about the last time the druids rooted up a Nemeton, and where that was. That’s what he’s looking for.”

And suddenly, despite how difficult Derek’s been, Stiles is interested again. Because just like an Emissary’s a connection between the werewolves and the rest of society, a Nemeton is a bridge between the land of the living and the dead. And it’s a bridge that doesn’t just go away: when you chop down a Nemeton and tear up its roots, that spot is still one of the places where the barrier between those two worlds is thin enough for things to pass through.

Which means it’s a spot that’s well-known to the Hunt, seeing as their primary duty is to drive wandering spirits back through to the Underworld. “How did she know about that?” Stiles asks, racking his memory for where he’s seen the Hales in the Hunt chronicles before. “Did she go there? Did she see it? The Nemeton? Was it before or after they pulled it up?”

“Why do _you_ want to know?” Derek says, suddenly alert, and too late Stiles realizes the man’s been deliberately guiding the conversation. He’s not as charming as Peter about it, but, well, he’s a werewolf, and they know how to stalk and drive prey. 

“Because I study magic, and Nemetons are—well, they’re important—” Stiles stalls.

“Like necromancy?” Derek presses. “Because that’s the kind of magic that talks about ghosts, and how to trap them, and you might not be working with him, but would you want my mother’s claws anyway?”

Stiles sputters nervously for a second, and then he remembers he’s in his own castle, in—not his bedroom but he thinks Lydia wouldn’t mind him claiming it for now, and damn it, talking about his specialty. “Well, if I did, do you really think I’d say so to your face?”

“No,” Derek says.

“Then why would you even _ask_?” Stiles says, throwing up his hands.

He forgot he was still holding the poker. It goes sailing across the room and Derek snarls, eyes glowing for a second, and dodges sideways and behind a fainting couch as the poker knocks into the wood paneling. Thankfully, it misses Lydia’s curio cabinet.

Not so thankfully, it leaves a huge dent in the wood, and it’s too far from any of the paintings for Stiles to just shift them on their hooks and cover it up. He’ll need a new painting and an excuse to be giving it to Lydia late at night and…and now he doesn’t have the poker.

Stiles yelps and retreats behind the piece of furniture nearest to him, which happens to be an armchair, just as Derek peers up over the couch. For a second they stare at each other over their respective furnishings.

“You smell human, but you just—I can’t figure it out,” Derek suddenly says. “You’re so _strange_.”

“And you just made me do that, and—suddenly I’m wishing I’d just turned in for the night,” Stiles mutters, briefly rubbing his hand over his face. “We just redid those panels, and she had them shipped all the way from Ireland and…”

“Why don’t you move the cabinet over?” Derek says.

Stiles looks up again, starts to consider that, and then frowns. “You literally were just accusing me of being an evil sorcerer.”

“I didn’t say _that_ , I said—I _asked_ if you’d want to use my mother’s claws,” Derek snaps.

“Well, _no_ , because if it’s about where that gate to the underworld is, I already know,” Stiles snaps back.

Without thinking about it, and as soon as he realizes what he’s said, he hisses and bangs his head into the side of the armchair. Twice. His father’s going to kill him.

On the third bang, or at least it would’ve been the third, the chair suddenly pulls away from him. He yanks it back and then looks up to find Derek standing over it, one hand on its back.

“What are you doing _now_?” Derek asks.

“I’m—nothing. Absolutely nothing, and go back over there before I find something else to throw at you,” Stiles hisses.

Derek stands there and looks down at him.

“Well, you’re strange too, you keep hanging around when you should know better,” Stiles says.

An annoyed look crosses Derek’s face and he opens his mouth. Then he pauses, and the annoyance goes away, to be replaced by a ruefulness that does odd things to his face. Makes him look younger, and less likely to punch somebody just because. And _then_ he smiles, and even if it’s obviously not because he’s happy, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s very, very handsome, with a very, very white, full set of teeth.

“This is completely stupid,” he says, snorting. “I _knew_ Peter was wrong.”

“Which is happening with distressing frequency, in my opinion,” Lydia says. She waits for Stiles to scramble out from behind the chair and then gives them all a superior smile. Which, given she’s standing in a doorway revealed by a hinged bookcase and has Peter, his hands defensively up at either side of his head, standing in front of her as she idly taps her fan against her leg, she’s completely earned. “It’s really a very poor argument for any kind of cooperation, you know.”

* * *

Five minutes later, they’re all comfortably seated, and Lydia’s still annoyed at Stiles.

“Well, how was I supposed to know you’d come to me?” Stiles says, beginning to lose patience himself. “It’s not like you sent a message, or left a note here, or, I don’t know, did anything that’d make me think we were doing things differently from usual.”

“And that wouldn’t be immediately obvious to your father and Chris? Since that’s _always_ what you do?” Lydia says, arms crossed in front of her. “We’re very lucky that they’re still out and Scott’s distracted with the elephant-sized _swath_ that this pair of fools tracked all over the woods—”

“We weren’t that obvious,” Derek mutters, glancing over at Peter. “We weren’t, even without that magic stuff you were throwing around. I went right by that one and he didn’t—”

Peter appears to be intrigued by the silver inlay on Lydia’s tea chest. “Shut up, Derek, I’m trying to listen.”

“—of course it’s less obvious if I sneak over to you!” Lydia finishes, with a slightly overdramatic toss of her hair. Then she lets out a put-upon sigh and uncrosses her arms so that she can start braiding the hair back from her face on one side, which is something she does whenever she’d like to wrap up a discussion. “But anyway, that was just thoughtlessness, whereas leaving your tack out for just anyone to pick up is sheer idiocy—”

Stiles winces. “Oh. _Oh_ , I forgot I was fixing that buckle—” and then he straightens up “—but on the other hand, honestly, Lydia, was I supposed to be expecting somebody to sneak into my bedroom? Over _our_ runes?”

Lydia…doesn’t say anything. Her eyes narrow and her lips thin out, but she doesn’t seem to have a response to that, which is unusual.

“Ah.” When they turn to look at him, Peter offers an apologetic smile and carries right on with making himself a cup out of the most expensive tea in the chest. “Admittedly, we weren’t quite skilled enough to overcome the runework, which was very deft, if I may be so bold.”

“Well, then how did he get in so you were worried about my tack?” Stiles says, looking back at Lydia.

Who raises a brow at him. “How did _he_ get in?”

“Derek?” Stiles says. “I let him in. Wait—but—why would—”

“Why would _you_ —” Lydia starts.

Peter clears his throat again. “I also admit it might not be my place, but may I observe that this is not likely to be a terribly fruitful discussion, and suggest that we move onto a topic that’s far more likely to pay useful dividends for all of us? Also, how many lumps?”

He offers up the sugar bowl. Lydia, her eyes still narrowed, leaves off her hair-braiding and folds her arms before her again. “Quite persistent, isn’t he?”

Stiles shrugs, noting how Peter’s smile takes on a slight strain and how Derek darts a look at his uncle. “Even if they didn’t get over our runes themselves, they still got through the whole woods and up to the house, with all of the traps and alarms that Chris had us set up. On top of all the old ones.”

“The Argents are very thorough and very knowledgeable, I’ll give you that, but it’s been rather a long time since they had any reputation for imagination,” Peter says. He sits back, sets the sugar bowl on the edge of the table closest to them, and then takes one lump for his cup. “Unless you consider a few of the latest generations, but no doubt Christopher would very much prefer if you didn’t. In fact, I’d be surprised if you’d heard the full story about them.”

“And I’m sure you are more than willing to provide those details,” Lydia says.

Peter glances at her, then shakes his head as he gently taps the drops off his spoon before setting it in the saucer. “Oh, I could, but as we keep saying, we’re not here for the Argents, and much as it does pain me, that would hardly be a fruitful avenue either.”

“I told you, we’re just here to find Deucalion and see where he took them,” Derek suddenly says. A little sharp and a little loud, as if the mere act of his speaking doesn’t put Peter on alert, judging by the flicker of surprise that crosses Peter’s face. He slouches down—and slightly away from Peter—in his chair, pursing his lips, and then settles on something and pushes himself back up. “My mother’s claws.”

Lydia immediately looks at Stiles, who’d wanted to see Peter’s reaction to that but who knows better than to ignore her. He does glimpse what he thinks was a blue flash flit through Peter’s eyes, but right then Peter takes a sip from his cup, and it’s not as if he rattles it or scratches claws over it or anything like that.

“She knew or heard about the Nemeton they uprooted during the witch trials and that’s what Deucalion’s looking for, that spot,” Stiles tells her.

“Because he thinks he can shed the ghosts haunting him by forcing them through the hole into the Underworld?” Lydia says.

Asking both him and Peter, who isn’t quite as ebullient as before, but who appears to have decided a confession is safer. “Presumably, but this is an alpha who attempted to conclude a truce with one of the Argents, was blinded for his pains, then turned on his pack and slaughtered them all before deciding to make a crusade out of pack massacres,” he says, drinking more tea. He puts his cup down briefly to flick out a handkerchief and dab off his mouth. “It’s an open matter _when_ the insanity took hold, in my opinion.”

“He’s not the kind of insane that he can’t put a plan together,” Derek mutters. He’s still wary of Peter, but it’s a different kind of wary, more like…like Stiles’ dad whenever Stiles is pushing to try something risky. It has that worn feeling of an old argument. “Anyway, he’s getting close. He’s taken that road out this way three times in the last month. We’re running out of time.”

“Running out of time for what?” Stiles asks. “You’re just trying to get them back from him, you can do that whether or not he’s haunted, can’t you?”

Peter gives Stiles a look that Stiles can’t quite read, something like reluctance mixed in with a kind of forbearance, as if he’d like to be angry but he knows he shouldn’t, and not just because he’s trying to win Stiles over. “There are only the two of us left,” Peter says after a long moment. He inclines his head, while Derek abruptly looks away from everyone, off at the moon shining through the door. “Our family has suffered a very unfortunate decline. Again, omega’s inaccurate, but Deucalion is still an alpha, and haunted or not, he’s kept up his fighting prowess.”

“So you think it’d be easier to get these back while he’s still distracted by his ghosts,” Lydia concludes.

“It’d be far easier for anyone else to tackle him as well,” Peter says. He puts his cup down for good, pushing it and its saucer aside as he turns more fully to them. “He’s slowed in his killings for the moment, but I’ve really seen no reason why he won’t return to his old ways.”

“He’s still killing other werewolves,” Derek adds in. He moves restlessly in his chair, then fixes on Stiles for some reason. “He’s looking for power, and he doesn’t care who he has to take it from. He’ll just take it.”

Peter nods in agreement, a sober expression on his face—which he’s a little quick to let go back to pointed attention. “In fact, I’m surprised you don’t seem to have heard of him yet.”

“We never said that,” Lydia says, with a note in her voice that tells Stiles she has more information on the subject for later. “Anyway, you’re telling us now. So what is it you were planning to ask from us?”

“Well, really, only whether you might be in a position to offer any aid,” Peter says, blinking, his expression surprised and almost verging on offended. “And to share the warning, and…it’s quite a ways down the road at this point, but I suppose we should offer you an apology for disrupting your journey.”

Derek looks a little bit as if he doesn’t agree with that last part. “It was the same coach at the same time, and…” he jerks as if somebody’s stepped on his foot or kicked him, although there isn’t a tablecloth and Peter’s feet have stayed put the entire time “…anyway, like Peter says, it’s just us, and I don’t think we have a lot you’d be interested in, with this giant castle, but—”

“I like to assume that knowledge is always valued,” Peter breaks in. He gives Derek a sharp look, then turns a much more pleasant one onto Stiles and Lydia. “And if I may, both of you do seem to have genuine interests in several areas that I also have studied. _Esoteric_ areas, beg your pardon.”

Stiles starts to ask him which exactly he means, then realizes he’s letting Peter lead him on about the same time that Lydia clears her throat. He and she look to each other, and then Stiles takes a step to the side. “We’ll just be over there for a few moments,” he says, nodding at one corner. “If you don’t mind?”

“Oh, by all means. These are your chambers, after all,” Peter says with a smile. Then he reaches for the tea chest. “I’ll just try and persuade Derek that tea isn’t muddy water, if _you_ don’t mind?”

“That is first-quality black,” Lydia says, glowering at Derek.

He blinks in confusion, then rolls his eyes and pulls his arm away as Peter tries to push a cup into his hand. The two of them hiss at each other about manners and what tea smells like to a werewolf as Stiles and Lydia go off.

They do quiet down once Stiles and Lydia stop moving, but they keep chatting with each other, presumably to cover up that they’re both going to be eavesdropping, like any werewolf would. Which Stiles is used to, so he shrugs at Lydia, asking her what she thinks. 

She flicks her eyes towards the werewolves, then reaches up to tuck a strand of hair back into her braid, which isn’t fastened at the end and which is slowly unraveling into loose waves. Still skeptical of parts of it, but overall interested, and then she snorts and pokes her foot out from under her dressing-gown to prod his ankle, smirking as he flushes.

Stiles rolls his eyes and then he catches himself scratching nervously at the back of his neck, so he yanks his arm down and raises his chin at her, because it’s not as if she isn’t also interested in multiple areas here. He looks at the nearest clock—a beautiful enameled one standing on the sideboard—and then back to find her mid-indignant blush. Which he rolls his eyes about again, because no matter what Peter was saying, it does _not_ take that long for her to sneak herself and him over here.

Lydia crosses her arms tightly over her breasts and lets out a huff. Stiles snickers. And then they both twist around to look at Peter and Derek, who’ve given up on talking to stare intently at them.

Derek’s eyes widen and he jerks back, then sideways, and forcefully enough that it looks like the chair might tip before he can leap out of it, like he’d obviously like to do. But then Peter—not taking his eyes off of them—reaches across the table. He flattens his arm across the edge of the serving tray to steady the tea service, then clamps his hand down over Derek’s wrist. And then he smiles. A little embarrassed, a little pleading, but mostly, it’s amused. Brazenly so.

“I think you should talk to my father,” Stiles says. “Now that we know what you’re looking for, I don’t think we have it. I mean, I’ll check with everyone again in the morning, but I don’t think so. But finding an alpha in the area shouldn’t be that hard. We just need to tell him and he’ll get all our people together.”

Peter was not expecting that at all. He’s so surprised that for a second, he almost looks displeased, as if he’d had another pitch all ready for them and doesn’t want to drop his planning. Then he shifts slightly, not quite shaking himself, and gives them a broad smile that’s probably more than half-genuine pleasure. “Wonderful,” he says. “I’m looking very forward to meeting, ah, what is—”

There’s a knock at the hall door. “Stiles?” Stiles’ father calls out. Then he knocks again. “Don’t bother, Lydia, I know he’s in there, I’ve checked his room, so if you could—both of you, I’m not angry, all right, I just would like to come in for a moment.”

Stiles had started at the knock, and now he winces and looks at Lydia, who shoots him a look of equally horrified shock back. As far as they both know, Stiles’ father is still supposed to be out looking for that missing knight.

Then they split up. Stiles rushes over to the table and grabs Peter and Derek by the arms, hauling them out of their seats, while Lydia runs for the door and calls out that she needs a moment to dress herself.

“Get under the bed, she’s got silencing runes carved into the frame, just don’t break anything and he won’t notice,” Stiles hisses at them, while shoving them that way. He lets go and stands back, watching as they crawl under, and then grabs the end of Derek’s boot and forces it behind the lace edging. “Stop hitting the bed, the runes don’t hide movement!”

He doesn’t have time to make sure they listen to him, just pivots around and rushes over to the table. Thankfully, Peter set out cups for all of them but didn’t do anything else, so Stiles puts two back on their saucers and is hastily making up one for himself just as Lydia lets in his father.

“Sorry,” his father says to her, averting his eyes as she clutches at the freshly-disheveled front of her dressing-gown. He goes a few more steps in the room, while Stiles is silently cursing that he didn’t think to muss his hair and maybe pull open his shirt-collar, then stops. “I’ll make this short, and—”

“I know you said to go to bed but you didn’t say which,” Stiles blurts out.

His father stops looking uncomfortable and starts looking vaguely exasperated, which is much more familiar for all of them. “You two are of age, you both know how you’re supposed to behave even if you sometimes act like you don’t have the sense of a—anyway. I just came in to let you know that we found the knight, but there were some…signs I didn’t like. We can talk about it more tomorrow, but I’m going back out again and I might not be back till late.”

“Late?” Stiles says. Before he can help himself, he glances at the window.

“I know,” his father sighs. “I’m sorry, I know you wanted to sit out this full moon for that conjunction, but—”

“Oh, no, that’s fine! I’ll—you go look at these signs, and I’ll hold down things here. Don’t worry about a thing, Dad, I’ll take care of it,” Stiles says hurriedly. He puts down the cup of tea he’s just made and then takes a step towards the bed, just as Lydia comes up and slips her arm through his. “You know, speaking of, you’re right. We should go to bed, get a bright and early start in the morning, since you’re going to be out.”

Lydia smiles and leans into Stiles so that her chin briefly touches his shoulder as she looks at Stiles’ father. “I’ll make sure he gets in a good rest.”

Stiles’ father looks less than convinced, but then someone calls him from the hall. He makes a frustrated face and takes half a step over, putting his hand on the knob. Then he looks back at Stiles, right in time for Lydia to haul him onto the bed and fall on top of him.

She probably meant to just push Stiles, but he’d been meaning to hop up onto the edge himself and part of her gown had hooked around his foot so they’d both fallen. He instinctively grabs her as she makes a shocked, very undignified noise that would be a squeak if it was anyone but Lydia, and they both twist around for a couple seconds before they manage to get into a stable position where neither of them should go sliding into a heap on the floor. Which is…Lydia straddling Stiles’ leg, one knee pushed high up to his waist while the other one jams in just short of his groin, with a double fistful of his shirt while his hands aren’t actually as high up under her skirts as they look. The gown’s just very—very floaty.

Stiles looks over at his father. “Just go to bed, and don’t make me write a letter to Lydia’s mother that I don’t want to write,” the man mutters, gazing at the ceiling.

“Absolutely, Dad,” Stiles calls as his father retreats into the hall. “Good night! Be careful!”

“Wait,” Lydia hisses, pushing at Stiles’ chest. “Did you hear that? Chris is out there.”

Just before the door closes, the sound of Chris and Allison talking does come through. Once the door is shut, Stiles can’t make out any talking, but he can hear somebody walking away, and it’s just one person.

“Stay under there till they both go away,” Lydia orders, stretching over Stiles to lean over the edge of the bed.

Nothing.

Stiles sighs. “Stick a hand out if you heard her.”

Lydia remains stretched over him for another second. Then she nods sharply and withdraws, sitting back on Stiles as there’s another rap on the door. Nobody opens it, but Allison calls out that she and Scott will be on this floor for the rest of the night, so to let them know if they want anything, and they’ll bring it to them.

“Chris must’ve given them a hell of a scolding,” Stiles sighs.

Rolling her eyes, Lydia opens her mouth to call out. Then she pauses. She looks down at Stiles, brow cocked, and he grins. Lydia mouths off a three-count and then they call out that they heard Allison, with Stiles a beat later than Lydia and doing his best to sound…throaty. Something like that.

It gets a lot easier when Lydia shifts on top of him and suddenly that knee of hers nudges right up between Stiles’ legs. Not _hard_ , he’s not in any pain, but his hands kind of—move unexpectedly under Lydia’s gown, and she blinks and draws in a slow breath.

“Um,” Stiles says. “That…that’s comfortable for you?”

“Well, it’s not uncomfortable,” Lydia says after a moment. She tilts her head to the side, considering, and then twists her hips slightly. Her brows twitch. “Better without that pinching—”

The bed shakes a little. Lydia grimaces and pushes herself off, turning over to lie on her back next to Stiles. He scrubs the blush off his face and stares at the ceiling and looks out at the moon and then at her. “She’s still standing outside the door, isn’t she?”

Before Lydia can answer, the bed shakes again. “Oh, then you shouldn’t have picked our _bedrooms_ to sneak into,” she mutters. She pushes one hand into her hair and shakes out the remains of her braid, then moves over onto her side and snuggles into the bed, pillowing her head on Stiles’ shoulder. “We can’t even use the passages, since _Stiles_ showed Scott all of them and he must have shown her by now.”

“Look, if Scott’s up too, they’ll get bored and go off to a different part of the hall sooner or later,” Stiles says. A yawn suddenly creeps up on him and he raises his arm to shield his mouth, then lets it flop back over his head. “Just give it a few minutes and we’ll check, all right? Shouldn’t be that long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...is that the lost legion's (which probably wasn't really lost) eagle Stiles' family has? Maybe.
> 
> Alchemy wasn't just a Middle Ages pursuit. If anything, it really flowered during the Enlightenment as it turned into chemistry. Isaac Newton played around with it.
> 
> Witch trials weren't just for Salem. England and the rest of Europe had them on and off, all the way through the Enlightenment.
> 
> Peter: What is wrong with you? It was just starting to be interesting!  
> Derek: _Exactly_.  
>  Peter: My nephew is a short-sighted prude.  
> Derek: You're a pervert.  
> Both: *sigh*


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Stiles blinks blearily awake. He looks up, then sideways, and then he yelps and leaps off the bed and runs into the boudoir, where he finds Peter and Derek. Shaving.

Well, Peter’s shaving, chin hiked up and one hand feeling at his Adam’s apple while the other swishes the razor clean in the washbasin. Derek’s squatting on a stool in the corner, fixing something with his boot-heel. They’re both shirtless.

“Good morning, Stiles,” Peter says. He gives his throat one last scrape, then puts the razor down and turns around. Gives Stiles a smile, tosses on his shirt, and then pulls on a very nice blue with silver embroidery waistcoat. The shirt continues to gape open in the front and he doesn’t make any move to button up the waistcoat, so honestly, being dressed doesn’t really change things much. “Lydia is perfectly fine, she threatened us both with a thousand different deaths if we moved from here before she returned with breakfast.”

“I think that’s her at the door,” Derek grunts. He doesn’t even look up, just stabs hard at his boot with an awl, then twists his hands so that his bent elbows splay and the muscles in his shoulders and upper arms do really terrible things.

Fine, not terrible, but Stiles is annoyed that he’s grateful Peter already has towels and a pitcher of cold water out, so he can damp a towel and rub it over his face. “How long have you been up?”

“Long enough for me to have to handle the introductions to Erica and Isaac,” Lydia announces as she comes into the room. She’s already dressed for the day, down to the delicate pearls nestled in her hair.

Isaac’s behind her, looking alternately curious and nervous as he carries in a breakfast tray. He goes only as far in as he needs to in order to set the tray down on a table, and once that’s done, he promptly retreats behind Lydia.

“Where’s Erica?” Stiles says.

Lydia’s arched brow asks him why on earth he’d think she would let Erica in here. “Making sure Scott and Allison get in some rest after their long night.”

“Can I go do that?” Isaac mutters.

“Are you going to? And not wake them, or unnecessarily panic Stiles’ father or Allison’s father about our _guests_?” Lydia says. Looking at Peter, who is finally doing up his buttons with a distinct air of amusement, instead of Isaac.

“Whatever gets me killed slower,” Isaac sighs, retreating.

“Boyd and Jackson went out?” Stiles guesses.

She nods. Then she shuts the door and leans against it as he gets up and helps himself to some of the food. Derek’s been on the alert since slightly before Isaac came in and he’s still staring at the platter, intensely enough that he starts and half-hikes the awl into a defensive position when Stiles turns and offers him a biscuit.

“For the sake of the woods and the wind, Derek, don’t threaten our hosts,” Peter snorts. He’s turned back to the mirror and is fussing with his hair. “Especially with the moon where it is, it’s certainly no time to be threatening a scion of the hunt.”

Stiles drops both his biscuit and Derek’s biscuit. Quick as lightning, Derek’s arm goes out and catches both. He lifts his hand slightly towards Stiles, but then freezes, his eyes going behind Stiles…where Lydia’s come up with her fan in hand. A resigned look crosses Derek’s face, then is quickly hidden behind a scowl.

“Well, since we’re now sure of at least peaceful conversation, I thought we might as well put on the table all of what _we_ know,” Peter goes on. He gives the curls at his temple a last tweak before turning around. Glances at the three of them, then pulls up a chair and bends over to put on his boots. “I’ll also admit I wasn’t entirely sure until just now, since with a castle of this age, I could very well imagine there are other reasons why skeletal knights might be walking around.”

“If we’d mentioned it and then you decided you didn’t want to work with us, we didn’t know if our guessing what you are would have made it worse,” Derek abruptly says.

That is true. And it is also true that if they were going to introduce the two men to Stiles’ father, the subject was going to come up anyway. Or if they were going to help find Deucalion, since there’s no point in offering that and _not_ using the fact that they’ve got a legendary spectral hunt, capable of tracking one across the divide between life and death, to back them up. Or the fact that there _are_ undead knights all over the place and even with best efforts, it’s just not easy to keep those under wraps. There’s just always a phalange or a coccyx bone rolling out from under the furniture.

Still, it’s a bit disconcerting to have it brought up so familiarly, as if it’s the same as Peter and Derek hesitating to mention the overly salty cooking after a couple free meals—although from the way Derek finally takes his biscuit and inhales it, _that_ is not a problem.

“Well, yes, I’m—my family’s held that position for a while,” Stiles finally says. A sideways look at Lydia says she’s going to let him handle this one, much as she’d like to take it and probably cut Peter’s familiar attitude back a few paces. At this point, she knows all the parts of the Hunt just as well as Stiles does, but until they’re married, she’s not _quite_ part of it herself. “So…it’s something you know about? You did say your old alpha—”

“Talia,” Peter says. He gives his right boot-top a last tug, then grabs either arm of his chair and pushes himself to his feet. Smiling at Stiles, though his eyes are oddly cool. “She knew, yes, and so did others in the pack. We’re an old family, and we have done our best to remember how things were done before, even if they’re no longer done that way.”

“So this Hunt can find anything,” Derek breaks in. He ignores the displeased look that Peter gives him. “Or anyone.”

Stiles makes a face. Clearly, whatever they’ve kept alive in the family memory, it’s gotten distorted. “We can find this Deucalion, if he’s got ghosts after him,” he says. “That’s easy, especially with the moon—”

“We’re late this morning,” Lydia interrupts, with her own sharp look at Stiles. “And yes, with the moon tonight, there’s quite a bit to do.”

“Oh. Oh, right, so…sorry, I have to go see to some things, but Lydia, you’ll give them the house tour and everything?” Stiles says. It’s not much of an excuse, but he’s just woken and Lydia’s not letting him have his breakfast and he just wants to get out of there and find out what she’s nudging him to find out before breakfast becomes the least of the things she denies him. “I’ll come join as soon as I’ve gotten everything started for the day.”

“No rush,” Peter says, and now his eyes are quite warm, as he makes a slight bow in Stiles’ direction. “We’re entirely at your disposal, my lord.”

“Sure,” Stiles says, backing out of the room. “Sure.”

* * *

“Your father wanted the knights secure till he and Chris know what’s making them wander off so much, so we’ve got them in the crypts and Isaac’s going down there every so often,” Erica says, handing Stiles a ring of keys. She looks well-rested, with a decided sparkle in her eyes as she comes up next with a leather-covered portfolio stuffed with papers. “Boyd’s with your father, but Jackson came back, so Lydia had him in the library looking up the Hales, here’s everything he has—”

Stiles juggles the keys for a second, then manages to hook them onto his belt before a slip of paper completely falls out of the portfolio. He snatches the slip out of the air, then rearranges the portfolio so he can look in it without dropping anything. “She asked _Jackson_ to look them up?”

“Well, you were sleeping, she didn’t want Allison doing it till you two had talked to her, Scott is not the library type, we all know that, and _I_ was busy keeping an eye on Allison and Scott for you,” Erica retorts with an eye-roll. She goes over to the side and gets Stiles’ portable desk for him, setting it on a table and opening it up so that he can get at his pens. “By the way, I expect good compensation for that.”

Actually, the topmost papers are all about the household, updates on the revenue and things like that. Which do need to be done, so Stiles sighs and starts scribbling calculations on his blotter paper. “For stalking Scott and Allison?”

“ _No_.” Erica smacks him on the arm. She was the next werewolf to join after Scott, and aside from an awkward, mostly one-sided two-month infatuation they both chalk up to a particularly rainy spring, she’s always treated him as a cross between a brother and a ragdoll. Especially since it irritates Lydia. “You know I’d do that anyway. I mean for getting your father upset at everybody, when we disobeyed his express orders.”

Stiles looks up from where he’s signing off on a bill of sale. “We’re not _expressly_ disobeying. I mean, if he told you something different, say so, but he said don’t go out of the house and don’t do anything without a plan this time. And do you think Lydia’s hosting people without a plan?”

“I think that she smelled just as worked up over Jackson finding records that one year, when the full moon fell on Samhain, an Isabella Hale laid out a hill-top feast so impressive that the next full moon, a rival pack was ‘swallowed up by storms,’ as when she ordered us to find fresh shirts for those two,” Erica says tartly. Then she pauses and her eyes go a little hazy, and not at all in an annoyed way. “Shame Derek didn’t catch anything below the waist on a nail. Those breeches look like he’s really lived in—”

“How far back is that?” Stiles says, shuffling past the bills till he finds the passage Jackson’s copied out. He skims it, then looks up. Sighs and snaps his quill under Erica’s nose, and then barely keeps it from being mangled when she snaps her fangs at him. “All right, all right. Thank you, and when Dad comes home, I’ll say it was all my idea.”

Erica gives him a skeptical look, for some reason. She should believe him; he’s never let his father blame them for anything that they weren’t actually involved in, or that he hadn’t bribed them ahead of time to take the blame for.

“You do have a plan, right?” Erica says after a moment. “Because look, I’ve only seen a little bit of them, since Lydia seems to think we’ll all faint at the first glimpse of a naked belly and while they have very nice ones, we really—anyway, Stiles, these two aren’t like us, and neither is this Deucalion they’re after.”

“Did Jackson find anything on him?” Stiles says, distracted, because he’s actually just paged to those parts. 

It’s a bit sketchy since the Blackwood pack appears to be a relative newcomer to the country, but in broad strokes, it all lines up with what Peter and Derek have been telling them. Aside from the part where Talia, the last alpha on record for the Hales, apparently died of wounds taken in fending off an attack by Deucalion. Which was several years ago, and Jackson has a note that there aren’t any more entries—but obviously not, he was looking in druid records and the druids usually stop writing when they no longer have one of them present. Which is one way to approach judging the value of secondhand accounts, Stiles supposes, but it’s a pretty draconian way, and Erica is still eyeing him.

He looks up, and she sighs, shaking her curls at him. For all that she and Lydia have a sort of ongoing rivalry, the two of them can be eerily alike in how exasperated they get with him. “Just tell me you’re not entertaining them because you really think they need it,” Erica says. “Because trust me, Stiles, they don’t. I don’t need to able to reel off their last ten alphas to see that.”

“Well, you didn’t really need us either. You came because you wanted to come, and the Hunt wanted you, too,” Stiles says, blinking. Because that’s not how the Hunt works. The old folktales only tell half the story there—if you stand your ground, the Hunt will respect that, but that only means it’ll pass you by. You have to do more than that in order to have the privilege of joining it. “And we’re not talking about letting them join, we’re just talking about this Deucalion. Who _does_ sound like trouble.” 

Erica looks reluctant about it, but she nods. “I’d heard of him—I didn’t know his name, but we’d heard about what he was doing. So they’re not lying about that.”

“Neither of us are just taking them at their word, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Stiles tells her. “Sure, Peter bought us dinner, and they stayed the night, but it takes a lot more than that to win the Hunt’s favor.”

“Like an uncut grimoire, or maybe some unrusted Roman siege artillery,” Erica says dryly. She gives him another push on the arm, then helps him sift out the household accounts from the other papers. “You’re still going to get in trouble with your father.”

“I’d do that anyway,” Stiles mutters. The rest of the papers, he packs into the desk, and then he slings the desk’s strap over his shoulder and lifts it from the table. “Look, Dad’s got enough to do, sorting out the knights, and all Lydia and I are doing is checking the story before we tell him. We’re just saving him some work.”

“Right. And tonight it’s going to be a nice, quiet summer hunt, we’ll just rustle up a couple suicides and maybe a Black Dog who never came home and call it a night,” Erica says, rolling her eyes.

She takes off with the signed accounts and Stiles heads over to Scott and Allison’s chambers.

Well, technically, it’s just Scott’s, because Allison has her own next to Chris’s set in the other wing, but Scott has one with two bedrooms because his mother occasionally journeys up to visit him. Not that that second bedroom actually gets used when Melissa’s not around. Stiles is reasonably sure that his father’s talked to Chris about it and helped with the fact that Chris just gives Scott a lot of suspicious looks, but honestly, Stiles doesn’t actually have to know _everything_. Some things can wait till there are further complications, like more weddings.

Allison opens the door, fully dressed in hunting gear. “Good morning, Stiles,” she says cheerfully. “Scott’s not up yet, he’s still worn out from spending the entire night guarding you, just like your father asked—”

A muffled voice calls out that he’ll be right there, he’s just looking for his other shoe, sorry about oversleeping and being late.

That’s actually a much more effective guilt trip than the one that Allison was clearly laying, but one thing Peter’s wrong about is the supposed lack of imagination in the Argents, because for as long as he’s known her, Allison’s always been top-notch at improvisation. “—and if today’s going to be spent completely ignoring your father and my father yet again,” she says, deftly pivoting her smile into icy Lydia territory. “I actually think we might have a few chores we should be catching up on. At least that way, when we’re sent to our rooms, we’ll have some useful results to show for it, like a freshly made bed, mended bows, clean clothes…”

“So…you’re _not_ upset at the idea of working with werewolves that your family feuded with,” Stiles says.

Allison stops and frowns at him. Then she opens the door wider, and the moment he steps inside, she shuts it and steps right up to him. “Listen, Stiles,” she says, very lowly and calmly, and eerily like her father. “When my father and I came here, we said that we’d given up werewolf hunting a long time ago. Now we hunt _anyone_ who’s earned it, by hurting innocents or any other kind of wrong. It’s about justice and protection, not vendettas, and believe me, I am not about to let some smirking werewolf ruin what my father and I have worked really hard to—”

“All right, all right. I wasn’t asking because I thought you’d go off and corner them when we weren’t looking,” Stiles says, holding up his hands. “Just, you know, you did mention that you’d all fought, and some of your family died, and Lydia and I were going to handle this ourselves anyway.”

She’s still frowning at him, but the corners of her mouth twitch the tiniest bit. They are friends, and not just friendly, as far as Stiles can tell—and not just because Scott will forever be the first werewolf who ever decided to follow Stiles home, and Allison is his sickeningly-sweet true love. Or she would be, if her no-nonsense streak didn’t rival Lydia’s, for all that it’s less likely to skewer your pride, skin it, and use it on the boudoir floor.

“Don’t be silly, then something will happen that’ll really make us all regret this, and Scott would never forgive himself for not being there for you,” Allison finally sighs. She takes a step back, then turns around and goes back to…she’s inventorying her crossbow bolts again, with rowan and holly ones stacked on the table. “So I asked my dad about Deucalion Blackwood before he and your father went out, and he said absolutely not, Allison, the man has massacred dozens of packs and even the druids are terrified of him. Sounds like he fits the new family oath.”

Right then, Scott pops out from the other room, with both boots on but with his shirt still partly untucked and his arm through only one sleeve of his coat. He flaps like a one-winged bird as he gives them both worried looks. “Wait, wait, aren’t we getting—don’t we have to find him first, before we start deciding what to do with him? I agree that it sounds terrible so far, but if the whole idea is to make sure he can’t hurt anybody else, shouldn’t we figure out what he’s doing first? So that nobody is accidentally hurt who doesn’t need to be?”

“Of course,” Stiles says, smiling at his best friend. “And so my dad doesn’t get _too_ upset when he comes back and finds out what we’ve been doing. We just want to find out what’s really going on, not to start an actual war or anything like that.”

“Oh, good. That’s a good idea—I think that’s the best way to go,” Scott says, slumping in relief. He takes a moment to fix his coat, then straightens up by Allison as he shakes his arms down into his sleeves. “Then—um, sorry, I think we were sleeping, but Erica said Lydia said that—”

“Deucalion stole their old alpha’s claws after she died because she knew where the old Nemeton was and he wants to use the gate there to suck away all his ghosts so he’s no longer tormented, so I think the first thing to do is check that and see if he’s been there,” Stiles tells both of them. “It’s full moon tonight anyway, and even if he hasn’t, if he’s in the neighborhood and looking for it, I don’t know how he could miss it. Plus that way we can do it with the Hunt, since I’ll be running it.”

Scott and Allison both look as if they’ve swallowed hard and unexpectedly, although Allison looks less pained and more frustrated. Then she looks down at her bolts. Presses her lips together, sighs, and then sweeps them all together into her hand to take away.

“That…does make sense,” Scott says after a long pause. He fidgets with the untucked part of his shirt. “But on the other hand, Stiles, doesn’t that…unless we’re going to lock them up but where could we where they wouldn’t see—”

“Oh, Peter and Derek already know, they saw a knight or something. Probably when they were sneaking around the woods and oh! You know, we should ask where. Maybe it was the latest stray,” Stiles says, knocking the heel of his hand against his forehead. He really needs to wake up already. “I’ll do that later. Anyway, it’s perfect timing, everything works out.”

“Oh,” Scott echoes uncomfortably. “Well. I…know they’ve had a lot happen to them, and I haven’t even really talked to them—that’s really horrible about their alpha’s claws. But Stiles, I…I hate to ask, but…do you think that them knowing about the Hunt is the best idea?”

Stiles frowns. “But they already knew. They guessed. What are you saying, that we should hold them down and you do the alpha memory trick and erase that?”

“No!” Scott says, horrified. He shakes his head for good measure, then starts tugging one hand through his hair. “No, I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that I know they need help but using the Hunt for it—that’s the part I’m not sure is a good idea. Because they might know about it, but…well, do they know everything? And if they don’t, do we—would your father want us to show them all of it?”

“I’m not talking about making them riders or even showing them the innermost archives,” Stiles says, more than a little irked. Fine, he can understand why everybody’s wary about letting in two strangers when they have a murderous insane alpha wandering around and specifically looking for ways to subvert the Hunt. It’s kind of an obvious worry. But then shouldn’t it also be obvious that he and _Lydia_ have also thought about that? “I’m just talking about letting them follow for one night so we can track down Deucalion. I mean, if you want, you and Allison can pair up with them and make sure they don’t ever leave the train.”

“Thanks, we’ll do that,” Allison says. She comes back over with a fresh set of bolts, the silver-tipped ones that she usually paints with some tincture or the other before using, and yes, that’s a set of wolfsbane distillations she puts down next. “But actually, I think what Scott really meant was are we sure _they_ don’t want the Hunt to show them the way for some reason? They don’t want to know where the gate is so they can do something themselves?”

“What would they want to do?” Stiles immediately asks. He sounds defensive. He _is_ defensive, because that’s a good point and he probably should have thought of that.

At least it’s Allison, not Erica or Jackson, so she doesn’t look triumphant or smug. She just goes straight to a shrug that admits she doesn’t know any more than Stiles does. “No idea, but their pack’s mostly dead, right? And they have a vendetta with this Deucalion, it sounds like, and they know enough about spirits to recognize the Hunt’s outriders.”

“Well, Deucalion apparently was responsible for killing their alpha, who _was_ Peter’s sister and Derek’s mother, in the first place, and then he desecrated her grave and stole her claw. If they want to trip him into the gate, I don’t actually think that’s a violation of the Hunt’s rules,” Stiles says after a moment’s thought. He does his best to ignore the sudden look of alarm on Scott’s face. “Also, I’m not totally sure I wouldn’t cheer them on.”

“Really, Stiles?” Allison says. Though she’s not that enthusiastic about the disapproval. She does try her best to stick to that new code of her family’s, but she’s got a bit of a vengeful side, and to be honest, Stiles kind of likes that about her. “Anyway, are you sure that’s what they want to do to him?”

Peter had gone on about how he didn’t care who got Deucalion, so long as somebody got him, and Stiles almost brings that up, but then thinks the better of it. If he’s reading Allison right, she’s going to keep at this one till Deucalion’s actually dead and she knows for sure who did it, and…he normally likes that about her too, but not when she’s doing it to him. And he has other things that they need to get done if _anything_ is going to happen before his father comes home.

“Lydia’s probably asking that right now, while she’s showing them around the house,” he says instead. “Besides, like I said, nobody’s taking Deucalion down tonight. We’re just going to ride by the gate and see if it’s been disturbed.”

“But what if he is there?” Scott asks. He pauses, then firms up his jaw the way he does whenever asked to do something he really dislikes by somebody he really doesn’t want to disappoint. “Are we planning to fight him then and there?”

“If he does something like charge at us, we’re not going to just let him, obviously, but he doesn’t really sound that stupid,” Stiles says. He and Scott both pause as Allison uncaps a vial that has something pungent enough to make even Stiles pull out his handkerchief; Scott moves over a few yards and Allison hastily dabs what she needs onto a wad of cotton, then recaps the vial, muttering apologies. “Look, I figure this does a couple things: it tells us how far he’s gotten, and if he’s there, it tells _him_ that we’re onto him. So actually, it’ll probably force him to back off, since if he knows about the gate, he also knows what we can do. And if he backs off, then that’ll get him off-guard so that Peter and Derek might even be able to surprise him without our help, because like I said, I’m not trying to throw us into somebody else’s war. I’m just trying to look out for us.”

And to be completely honest, Stiles pulled at least half of that together in the last few minutes as he was talking it through with them. Not that he’s always in the habit of just flinging himself into things, but sometimes it helps to have people poking at him, in order to get all the semi-formed thoughts that’ve been floating around since his and Lydia’s carriage was stopped to actually cohere. He is what he is, and just sitting down and working it out at a drawing board doesn’t always work for him.

Which is why he keeps inviting all the people who are good at helping him do that to stick around. It might also be why some of them decide to say yes, judging from the way Allison’s considering him; she likes to help people, but unlike Scott, who does it like he breathes, she did grow up in the kind of family who’d teach her to at least look at the cost-benefit of helping them.

The numbers must add up, because Allison just nods. “I think we should talk about where to put them in the train,” she says. “We’re down werewolves, and don’t tell me you were thinking about putting knights on them. Even the ones who aren’t getting lost seem a little, well, _lost_.”

“I know. I know, and Dad and I really need to sit down and look into that, that can’t just be a quirk of the moon at this point…anyway, yes, we’ll talk about that. I mean, unless you think it’s a good idea to have them stay back?” Stiles asks.

Even Scott looks disbelieving about that one. “I don’t think they’re going to, Stiles. We might as well take them so we can keep an eye on them.”

“Well, all right, since that’s settled now,” Stiles says, stepping forward and slinging his arm around Scott’s neck. “What about we go and get on the whole asking them more detailed questions about their motives part? Assuming Lydia’s left something for us to ask, that is.”

“You can go ahead,” Allison says to Scott. She holds up a bolt and squints at the tip. “I’ll just finish up here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Melissa's alive, she just prefers to stay with her community and serve as their medical expert, since it's not like there's a huge need for that at the castle. No comment on whether she spends some quality time with Chris and John when she does visit.


	6. Chapter 6

Lydia, when they catch up with her and their two guests, has left plenty. In fact, she and Peter appear to be in the middle of a very healthy discussion about cavalry maneuvering in a woodland landscape, both of them pushing tiny wooden figures around equally tiny model pine trees on an antique map table. Derek’s standing a little off to the side, and does appear to be following along, but his attention is clearly split by the way Lydia jabs her fan in the air when she’s trying to make a point. Peter, on the other hand, is barely flinching at that now.

“Oh, there you are,” Lydia says, spotting Stiles. “Come over here and explain to him why the ability to disarticulate your skeleton is _not_ equivalent to being able to double your forces.”

“I don’t mean it in the literal sense, but certainly there must be some use out of having two independently-operating halves,” Peter says. But he’s already pushing away from the table, and as Stiles and Scott come up, he turns to the nearby sideboard and pours out two glasses of wine. “I hope everything was concluded satisfactorily?”

Scott whiffs the wine as he takes it from Peter. He tries to be subtle about it, but with other werewolves that’s impossible. Peter ignores it but Derek snorts and drops back into a chair. He’s dressed now, and if that’s one of Boyd’s shirts he’s wearing, Stiles wouldn’t be able to tell because it fits him…it fits him. Stiles is just going to leave it at that.

“If we were going to poison you, we wouldn’t do it in front of them where they could call up a bunch of undead knights to decapitate us,” Derek says, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the stables.

One of the fancier crypt entrances is near there, so Lydia really must have given them the tour. “It’s fine,” Stiles says. He takes his cup but just wets his lips before he puts it aside. Not because he’s thinking about poison, but because he doesn’t really like the sweet wine Lydia favors. “And it’s not really like—the legs will keep controlling the horse while the top half does something else. They’re still one person and how many people do you know can keep an eye on several things at once?”

“Hmm, I hadn’t considered that,” Peter says, his brows rising. He’s borrowed the cravat, Stiles recognizes it as one Lydia gave him but that he rarely wears because the lace is itchy and he thinks it makes his front look like a bird with its belly all puffed up. Which it does _not_ do on Peter, instead falling in perfectly crisp folds that subtly angle up towards his smile. “Point. Although I’m surprised that the Wild Hunt wouldn’t be able to take its pick of warriors.”

Leading question, obviously, but Peter’s going to meet the knights up close tonight, if he hasn’t already. “It does, but they’re the pick when they join the Hunt, and fighting styles change,” Stiles says. “Also the Hunt changes, too. It used to be people just expected to keep on fighting after they died, same as when they were alive.”

“So what do they expect now?” Derek asks, as if genuinely curious. And when Stiles looks at him, he really appears to be, as if the idea of an eternal rest is just as strange to him as it is to some of the oldest knights.

Then again, with what happened to his mother, maybe that’s not so surprising. “Something…something terrifying,” Stiles says. “Something that makes you stop, and remember. All the things that they’ve tried to sweep away, pretend never existed, as if by moving away from them, they’ve taken away their power. But it doesn’t really work like that.”

There’s a little quiet after Stiles finishes. He blinks hard and then glances at Lydia, who appears to be as off-guard as Stiles about it. She crosses her arms and the rustle of her skirt makes the rest of them move: Derek settles back in his seat as if he suddenly feels more at home, while Peter—something in his eyes dives just out of view, something almost excited.

“Were you talking about what we’re doing tonight?” Scott, of all people, asks. But on the other hand, he’s also always been the one who has never been that awed by any of this, and not in an arrogant or stupidly fearless way. It’s just that he always, somehow, manages to see the small, human side of it. 

“We’d talked about how the Hunt might be useful in tracking Deucalion down,” Lydia says. She flicks a look at Stiles, who nods to let her know that yes, he read through all the research too and came to the same conclusion. “And about Derek and Peter coming along.”

Scott might be privately uncertain, but in public he’s always going to stand with his friends. He even goes so far as to give a reassuring smile to the other two werewolves, neither of whom actually look that concerned about going with the Hunt. “It looks different when you’re riding with it. The knights won’t go after you unless you get out in front of the Hunt—then they might make that mistake, but we’ll all be there to see that you stay in the train.”

“Yes, Lydia gave us something of a summary,” Peter says slowly. He shifts his posture slightly, spreading his shoulders and putting his head at an aggressive cant, even though his tone remains mild. “I imagine that you will do that. See to us.”

Behind him, Derek rolls up out of his slouch and hunches forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Honestly, it’s less of a hunch than a crouch, lurking at Peter’s flank, and Stiles realizes what they’re doing just as Scott, beside _him_ , straightens up.

“I like this table,” Lydia says. She gives them all a cool look, her fan ticking at her side. Then she leans forward and gives the edge a light stroke. “We’ve just had the wood refinished, and Stiles spent positive _ages_ on the runes to make the ley lines glow. So please, when I come back, have it still be in one piece.”

On that note, she pivots on her heel and swishes her way out of the room, only stopping at Stiles’ elbow long enough to let him know that she’ll be taking the midday meal in her room since she wants to work on an experiment before they start gearing up for the night. Stiles tells her he’ll get the kitchens to send up some extra cakes, then kisses her cheek as she sniffs that off. She’s still going to eat them.

“Peter Hale, of the Hales,” Peter says while Stiles is still part-turned to watch Lydia leave.

He’s using a very different tone than Stiles has heard from him before, very measured and precise and strangely formal. When Stiles turns back, Peter has stepped away from the table and come around the end to directly face Scott, who’s trying to smooth the surprise off his face. Peter pauses, then extends his right hand. It’s not for a traditional handshake: the palm is face-up, and he’s leaning forward, his neck slightly stretched out but not angled towards the other man.

Derek gets up slowly behind him, watching Scott and keeping his hands in front of him. Scott frowns and looks at both of them, and then puts his hand out so that it covers Peter’s. He presses down briefly and his head ticks down, not quite as far as Peter’s—that’s not an alpha-beta thing, that’s just Scott trying to keep his eyes on somebody he’s wary of. Then they both pull their arms back at the same time.

“We’re not that formal here, but I appreciate it,” Scott says. “And we did already introduce—oh.”

“ _We_ didn’t,” Derek mutters. He stops for a second, once he’s just passed Peter, and Stiles catches Peter’s upper lip twitching as if the other man might growl at him. But then Derek shrugs diffidently and goes through the same routine as Peter.

“Well, now that we’re all taken care of, from an etiquette perspective, did Lydia tell you what else we could be doing tonight?” Stiles says briskly, trying to fill in while Scott gets over his awkwardness. “Where we could see how far Deucalion’s gotten in his research?”

Both Derek and Peter immediately look interested, with Derek even turning his shoulder to Scott. Peter’s not quite so careless, but his posture shifts sharply, leaning carelessly in towards Stiles. “Do tell,” Peter says. “You have news?”

“Not really,” Stiles has to admit. Oddly, neither werewolf looks disappointed, and they just keep watching him. It’s…intense, and he goes up to the table and starts rearranging the figures for something to help him ignore it. “I mean, we’ve always known where the gate—where the old Nemeton is, obviously. It’s one of the gates we run the Hunt towards. So if you’re right, and that’s what Deucalion’s after, he should be hanging around there, or trying to.”

“So we’re going to see it?” Derek asks.

He doesn’t ask that as if it’s a shocking idea, or even a surprising one. It’s almost as if he’d been expecting it, and Stiles nearly asks the man whether Lydia already went over this with him. But she wouldn’t do that, not without Stiles, and the fact that Stiles has to think about it to figure that out says something about how thrown he is.

And also, that he’d miss that they apparently are that knowledgeable about the Hunt. Or maybe not knowledgeable—you could be that comfortable with its workings if you also just are that driven, Stiles supposes. But either way, Stiles is beginning to see where Scott and Allison are coming from with wanting to figure out the Hales a bit more.

“The Hunt will run tonight, and it’ll be easy enough to circle around the gate,” Stiles finally says, watching Peter’s and Derek’s faces. “If he’s been near it, we’ll definitely find out. But he might not be there, and if he’s not, we can’t promise we’ll get him. What I said earlier, I mean, yes, we _could_ find him, but you need to understand it’s not the same thing.”

Derek presses his lips together, clearly just stopping himself from saying something. He doesn’t agree with the plan, but he’s reluctant to push. Peter, on the other hand, just continues to look thoughtful. 

“I agree that he’ll have left signs. He may even be nearby, but I doubt that Deucalion would be careless enough to put himself in the Hunt’s way,” he says, coming up to the table. He continues to gaze back at Stiles for a moment, then drops his gaze to the small mounted figure he’s begun to toy with. “Being too close to the gate before he has everything in his favor is the kind of exercise he used to make his lackeys do. Of course he doesn’t have any anymore.”

“One thing we’ve managed,” Derek grunts. Then he abruptly retreats to his chair, just as Peter starts to turn towards him.

Peter pauses without fully looking at Derek’s direction, but with his face turned too far for Stiles to read it. When he finally looks back to Stiles, he’s just interested in Stiles. “For a pack-killer, he wasn’t really any better at being on his own than any of the rest of us would be,” he says, almost musing. “He gathered a second pack, if you’ve learned of him now—all alphas.”

“But if you’d fought them, shouldn’t you be alphas now, too?” Allison’s suddenly come up. She gives Stiles a quick apologetic glance for startling him, then curls around Scott, resting her hands on his waist and her chin on his shoulder as she looks with innocent curiosity up at Peter.

It’s a bit much, even Stiles would say, but Peter returns the look with a thinly amused smile. “If we’d fought them directly, we’d be dead,” he says easily. “Which is what happened to Derek’s sisters. We’re only fortunate that they took a few with them.”

“Oh,” Scott says, looking stricken. Behind him, Allison doesn’t look very comfortable either. “I’m sorry.”

“Late for that. They’re dead,” Derek says, tone flatly final.

“Hunters and one shockingly competent—for once—druid took the rest, and as far as we’ve heard, Deucalion hasn’t replaced them yet. So at the moment, he’s on his own, and I’d expect him to be cautious,” Peter says. His tone is so light it’s as if he thinks he can float the conversation back to safer ground by sheer willpower, but even on him it’s a noticeable strain. “The ritual—”

“Which is that again?” Stiles asks.

Peter makes an amused noise. “Oh, I haven’t said yet,” he drawls, and then he smiles almost apologetically at Stiles. “Forgive me, I didn’t want to bother with the details if you weren’t actually interested. But it’s a ritual out of the Sibylline Books—you probably deduced from his given name that Deucalion’s family originated abroad. That’s as far as we’ve managed to learn. We’re not sure which, and I haven’t had the chance to consult a copy, though not for lack of trying.”

“Have you been breaking into libraries?” Allison says. She’s trying to make a joke.

And Peter nods, acknowledging that, before nodding again, answering her seriously. “Most of our family’s collection has been lost or destroyed, although even if we did still have them, I’m not sure we had a complete copy of that work. My ancestors weren’t particularly interested in the Romans.”

“I think we’ve got one,” Stiles says without thinking, because hey, it’s a rare and valuable book about magic. And all those accusations of him being a bit of a fool for a library are probably understating it. “I mean, that stuff’s not really applicable up here, so it doesn’t ever get pulled out, but I could’ve sworn I saw something like that the last time we did an inventory…”

He trails off because Peter’s suddenly swerved around to look at him, with an alertness that’s even more intense than anything Stiles has seen from the man yet. There isn’t a shred of manners or even caution to shield it—Peter’s gaze is just naked, pure interest.

“You do?” Peter says, just as Derek makes a throat-clearing noise behind him. To werewolf hearing it has something more, because Scott tilts his head, looking confused, while Peter abruptly catches himself. He looks down, then back up while pulling a rueful face on. “I beg your pardon, but we’ve been following Deucalion for quite a while now, trying to figure out exactly what he’s preparing to do, and we’ve only had the odd crumb.”

He’s still so in earnest that Stiles can’t do anything but believe the man sincerely means what he’s saying. In which case, checking the catalogs seems like an excellent opportunity to gauge his and Derek’s motivations, since they can at least see whether the two men are interested in the subjects they should be. And the catalogs aren’t anything dangerous on their own, since it’s not like they even tell people where the really important books are stored, let alone how to access them without having your soul stripped out of you.

“Well, let’s go look in the library,” Stiles says. He takes a step away from the table, then pauses. “Or I could look while you stay here—it could take a bit, and the library’s—”

“The absolute first room I always want to see, when visiting a new place,” Peter says, smiling at him. “Lead on, Stiles, lead on.”

* * *

Scott drops out on the way to the library, saying that he’s just going to the kitchen to let them know, in case they’re still there when the midday meal is ready. “Also letting Lydia know,” Allison mutters. “Just in case.”

Makes sense, since Allison knows her trade but hunters are really more used to being out in the open air, and the library’s not her area of expertise. But as it turns out, there’s no real threat, since the moment Peter and Derek walk into the library, they seem so stunned by what they’re seeing that Stiles has to reach out and tug Derek back by the sleeve before he misses one of the steps into the sunken floor of the main chamber, and falls flat on his face.

Peter navigates the steps just fine, but it’s kind of a relief when he stops only a few feet into the space, with how he’s kept his head pointed firmly upwards, staring at the admittedly spectacular stained-glass windows. He turns slowly in place, so that Stiles can see his mouth is silently moving, and after a second Stiles figures out that Peter’s reading off the captions under the constellations.

They’re in runic script, and several of the constellations are from the old pagan traditions, which means Peter’s very well-versed in northern texts. That’s odd these days, with neoclassical education so popular, but then again, his family is—was rooted in the Marches, still a heavily Celtic area. He’d hinted as much before.

Stiles leaves Allison to watch Peter and goes over to the side with the catalog books and the index cabinets. He’s found the listing for the Sibylline Books on an index card and is craning his head up at the shelves, looking for the right volume in the catalog, when he realizes Derek’s drifted after him.

“Your family’s never lost anything, from the looks of this place,” Derek says, not really acknowledging Stiles’ start. He looks a little stiff, keeping his hands unnaturally close to himself, but he keeps glancing around—less at the books themselves, Stiles realizes, and more at the fixtures. The bits of old stonework particularly seem to catch Derek’s eye. “Just kept adding.”

“We try to preserve things,” Stiles replies after a moment. There’s a note in Derek’s voice he can’t quite decipher, not exactly hostile, but…envious, maybe. “The Hunt changes, but you need to remember what it’s been before. _Where_ it’s been. That’s part of it, that we remember the trails and ways that have been forgotten, and when we ride out, we show people where they were.”

Derek looks at him, then turns away to gaze back at the central chamber. “My mother used to say something like that,” he mutters. “We used to—we had parts of our house that she said went back to when people first started building houses.”

“Really?” Stiles says. Maybe too loudly, because Derek gives him an odd glance. “It’s just, when I’m out with the Hunt, things look…I can _see_ buildings that aren’t there anymore, kind of. Like their ghosts. So it’s sort of a passion of mine, old architecture. Especially anything before Christianity.”

Something passes over Derek’s face, shadowy, not quite anger, but definitely on the gloomy side. At the same time, he does look like he understands Stiles better, and not so much as if Stiles talking is the same as if a mushroom tried to talk to him. “It’s all gone now,” he says, with that flat bluntness Stiles is beginning to associate with old wounds. “Torn up in the fighting, even the foundation. Those old parts—they were _old_ , not much carving, always sticking out where you’d bump your shin into it…I hated them when I was living there. But now they’re just gone.”

“Oh.” Stiles…really doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to that. He’s not even sure if he should offer his condolences.

Derek shrugs, and then looks up and down the shelves before them. “So these are these Sibylline Books Peter’s been dragging us all over the country to find?”

“Are they?” Peter says, coming towards them. He’s got a hopeful look on his face that abruptly shutters as he starts reading the spines, stirring an unexpected pang of guilt in Stiles’ chest.

It’s just Stiles doesn’t like disappointing people, even if he’s not sure about them. “No, these are the catalogs—the actual Books can’t be…you can’t just go into a room and pick them and flip through them. They’re not just parchment, you know. They have power just by themselves. So I figured first we’d look and find what sounds like the section this ritual would fall under. _Then_ we’d get to the actual Books.”

“Oh, yes,” Peter says, his face relaxing from the polite mask it’d taken on. “That sounds sensible.”

“Well, all right, then. I’m going to guess we should start with this—” Stiles takes off two hefty volumes and hands them over to Allison, who’s squeezed out Derek for them “—and these, and…hmm, that one, and probably this one too, just to be on the safe side.”

Allison is struggling with just the two he gave her. She makes a valiant attempt to dip and have the third one land on her stack, but the weight makes her dip too far and she nearly drops her armful. By the time she’s steadied herself, Derek has put out an arm and taken one, while Peter has pointedly scooped up the remaining books.

She looks annoyed, but they’re literally just walking the volumes a few yards to the reading desks, so Stiles doesn’t see much of a reason to make a fuss about it. He just gives Peter and Derek a quick lesson in how to handle the books—they do rebind the catalogs every couple decades, but still, no reason to be careless. Or leave more damage for Stiles’ dad to bring up when he gets around to scolding Stiles for their guests.

At first Derek seems a little bored by it, but Peter growls at him and he starts paying close attention after that. Peter takes Stiles’ explanations _very_ seriously, to the point that he starts asking questions like why some anti-rot spells aren’t recommended for these types of books, and what’s the methodology behind the indexing if the catalogs don’t correspond one-to-one with how chapters are arranged in the actual references, and even Stiles doesn’t need Allison’s throat-clearing to think that they need to get back on track.

“I apologize for my overabundance of enthusiasm,” Peter says a few minutes later, once they’ve divided up the books and have a plan for searching them. “I used to be the family librarian. When we still _had_ a family library.” 

There are less reading desks than there are people—small accident with a knight and Jackson’s second-best coat a month ago, and the carpenter hasn’t sent replacements up yet—so Derek and Allison are sharing one, while Peter and Stiles sit opposite each other at the second. Stiles looks up from the page he’d been scanning and catches Peter looking wistfully at the book in front of him.

“Although even when we did, it wasn’t of this quality,” Peter goes on. He gives the page in front of him a lingering stroke with two fingertips, the kind of touch you’d use to pet a cat or dog, and then lifts his eyes to meet Stiles’. “You’re quite privileged, to have this at your beck and call.”

For some reason, Stiles feels as if Peter’s caught _him_ at something, when really, Peter was the one toying with the book. He shrugs and wills down the blush he knows is trying to creep into his cheeks. “That’s why I try to take care of this—of what I’m inheriting,” he says, forcing his attention back to his book. “So this ritual Deucalion wants to use, to get rid of his ghosts…”

“I suspect, knowing him, that he’s looking for one that not only will dismiss them, but that would also turn them back on any living enemies he has,” Peter remarks. 

It still feels as if he’s staring at Stiles, and Stiles has to resist the urge to tug up his cravat. “Vengeful?”

“Well, werewolf, comes with the territory,” Peter says almost cheerfully. “But more seriously, because he’s also short of resources. He has many enemies besides us, and now no lackeys to throw between them and himself.”

“I know you said you didn’t care who ended up killing him, but you do want him dead, don’t you?” Stiles asks. He drums his fingers against the desk, then leans forward and drops his voice. One, because he can see Allison trying to keep an eye on them and while he understands that, she’s got her own werewolf to watch and Derek is _not_ turning pages by the corners, like he’s supposed to. Two, because he knows that stretches out his neck and he does know something about werewolves himself. “That goes with the vengeful territory—it’s not as if you’ll be satisfied if he doesn’t turn up dead. Will you?”

Peter considers Stiles for a moment, a faint smile playing about his mouth. His gaze drops briefly and his lips twitch, as if to drop a careless chuckle, and then suddenly he leans over himself. They’re still separated by two large books and a stretch of desk, but somehow it doesn’t feel as if there’s that distance—or maybe it’s that the distance doesn’t feel real, the same way that fae food doesn’t truly fill up anyone, even the fae themselves.

“No, Stiles,” he says, in a very low, very smooth tone seems to lick about the way that a snake curves its body around rocks. “I would not be satisfied if that man walked away alive. He’s done more than enough to deserve his fate, and been allowed to escape it for far more than anyone’s ever allowed m—anyone ever should be allowed. So would I take that shot, if it presented itself? Of course. But, as I said, if I’m not afforded the—”

“I know, I remember what you said,” Stiles says, slightly annoyed. He’s not entirely sure why; he understands why Peter would feel the way he does, and he might not necessarily disagree with it either, if all the things Peter’s said about his family and Deucalion are true. Maybe it’s how Peter is…condescending to him, as if he _couldn’t_ possibly understand that sort of feeling, and when the man now knows what he is. “I’m only asking because if the Hunt does turn him up, he could end up the quarry for the night.”

There’s the slightest twitch of Peter’s face, before he can quite suppress all of his satisfaction and look at least a little bit surprised. “Oh, well, in that case—”

“Or he might not. You never know, until the full moon’s over,” Stiles goes on, watching as the surprise on Peter’s face gradually turns genuine. “It’s never a sure thing. That’s what I was trying to say before.”

“Even if he were foolish enough to let himself be caught out, he’d know the rules about confronting the Hunt. And I hate to admit it, but he probably have the nerve to do it,” Peter says after a moment. With reluctance and distaste, though neither of those are directed at Stiles.

And Stiles could leave it at that. Lydia probably would, but that’s one difference between the two of them—he tends to think that being truthful doesn’t make things less scary, and even if it does, it often helps more than being terrifying would. While she always believes that terror is an important advantage.

“It’s not just that,” Stiles tells Peter. “It’s that the Hunt might not _choose_ him tonight.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a choice involved at all,” Peter says, frowning.

“Well, it’s not a choice the way that you would think of it, normally,” Stiles says. “The Hunt isn’t just—just people, or personalities. It’s a force. When we ride out, yes, Lydia and I will be in the lead, but we serve the Hunt, not the other way around.”

Peter doesn’t quite follow, and what he does follow, he doesn’t like, says the expression on his face. On the other hand, he’s still interested enough that he doesn’t remember to hide his displeasure, so preoccupied is he with trying to understand. He shifts in his seat, pursing his lips, and then stops himself twice in the middle of asking a follow-up question. Once he even looks down at his book, tugging it nearer to him, as if he’s going to go back to reading that, but he almost immediately changes his mind about that.

“I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising,” he finally says. He’s attempting to keep the conversation light but his eyes keep straying back to the book: he’s in the section indexing spells for communicating with the spirits who _have_ gone on to the Underworld. “Nowhere else is fairness much more than a wishful dream we tell each other, so why it’d be any different here—”

“I’m not saying it’s unfair,” Stiles says sharply.

Peter’s eyes come up to him. “But you _are_ saying that the Hunt wouldn’t have any interest in an alpha werewolf who’s broken all bounds of our society, who’s crossed all lines that _hunters_ supposedly police—”

His voice has risen enough that Derek and Allison are openly watching, with Derek completely twisted around in his seat and looking rather worried. Derek’s legs move a little, as if he’s thinking about leaping over at Peter, while Allison keeps reaching under the table for whatever weapon she’s stowed there.

Stiles tries not to look at them and just makes stop motions with his hand at her. “I’m not—”

“Here’s a werewolf who’s even bold enough to challenge the judgment of the dead, and for all that he’s suffered so far, it doesn’t seem as if he’s really had to _pay_ the dues he owes,” Peter says. He rounds it off with the kind of sarcastic chuckle that could give Lydia’s banshee cry a run for its money in terms of its bone-chilling effect. “Looked at in that light, you might almost say he’s a role model for the new werewolf, in this age of changes. Might you?”

“You could, yes. But I wouldn’t,” Stiles says. When Peter looks at him, he stares back at the other man, holding his gaze as Peter’s expression goes from skeptical to bemused and then puzzled. “I said the Hunt has aims of its own, but that doesn’t mean it’s unfair. It just—it’s a _force_ , all right? It’s not just a bunch of ghostly knights and me and Lydia running around the countryside. It’s—it’s the night and the air and the wind under the moon. It’s that dead tree in high summer, reminding you that as hot as it is, winter will be next. It has its own reasons, and you just can’t see _now_ what it sees _then_.”

He isn’t making any sense. He knows he isn’t, and this is always the hardest and most frustrating part about getting people to understanding what exactly that he is and what he does and why. By definition, the Hunt falls outside of the ordinary world and so of course it doesn’t make sense when you try to relate it to what you know—but it _does_ make its own sense. And that’s probably why past Hunter leaders just kidnapped people all the time. It’s a lot easier to understand when you’re up in the sky riding along.

On the other hand, kidnapping just…isn’t something Stiles wants to do. Not to mention it doesn’t really fit these days, with all the new things that people know and understand. They don’t stay terrified anymore; they get angry, and angry people are disruptive, and for all that the Hunt does want to shake up everyday life, it isn’t actually chaos. It’s got its own order to maintain, and it’s a lot easier to do that if the people who are part of it _want_ to be part of it. 

“I mean, I can see why you’d want somebody to go after him, and I’m not saying I think he doesn’t deserve it,” he tells Peter. “But I just don’t want you to think that you can count on the Hunt to do that. That’s all I’m trying to make clear here.”

Peter nods shortly. He’s listening. And then he takes in a deep breath, resettles his shoulders, and turns a resigned, if polite, smile towards Stiles. “We weren’t discussing that anyway, I suppose,” he says. “We have only asked for information, and we haven’t even offered compensation for that yet.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Stiles says with a shrug. “I think as far as that goes, I’ll just be interested in learning what ritual Deucalion thinks he can use. It’s been a long time since somebody tried to go around the Hunt, especially at that gate. And we’ll help you figure out whether or not he’s been around. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Derek and I should be able to manage on our own after that. We’ve been doing so for years now, at any rate,” Peter says. He looks a little bit less frustrated, and when he turns back to the book, appears to do so with genuine concentration, and not as if he’s only doing it for the distraction.

“We’ll help with what we can,” Stiles finds himself adding, still uncomfortable with where they are. Even if true, they don’t owe Peter and Derek anything. But…he wants to help them. Lydia’s going to laugh at him, and Scott and Allison are still right, they can’t be sure of the two yet, but he is starting to like them, and to feel sympathetic about what’s happened to them. “I don’t think he will get away with it forever. The things you’ve said he’s done, those always catch up with you. If nothing else, we’ll make sure that the ghosts haunting him now will keep haunting him.”

“True. Though that’s still a little ephemeral for someone without much of a conscience…but as I said, that’s not what we hoped to speak with you about.” Peter smiles at Stiles, and sure, he’s changing the subject on purpose, so they don’t keep arguing, but at least he doesn’t want to fight with Stiles. “Well, one thing at a time. If I can learn about this ritual before he can, that at least will be something over him, that he’ll care deeply about.”

Stiles nods encouragingly, turning back to his own book. “If we don’t find it before tonight, I’ll talk to my father. I don’t think he’ll mind too much if we just keep looking afterward.”

That…might be promising more than Stiles can really guarantee, speaking of taking one thing at a time, and Stiles can feel Allison’s dubious stare on the back of his head. But look, he’s going to try his best, and he does think that once his father calms down about the whole inviting in even _more_ werewolves part, he’s got a decent argument to set out. 

Plus it seems to genuinely reassure Peter. For a moment the man looks startled, and then he gives Stiles a warm smile. “I could spend months in this place,” he says a little wistfully, gazing around them. “Even at our height, I don’t think our family had these sorts of resources. If I’d ever had the opportunity…”

“Well, you do now,” Stiles says impulsively. The plan _still_ is to not open up the innermost archives, and to also keep an eye on what Peter and Derek seem interested in, to make sure everything they’re saying and doing match up. But it’s just the way that Peter looks at the books, as if he really would happily burrow into the library—even Stiles’ father gets a bit bored paging through them, committed as he is to knowing everything they need to in order to do a good job. Stiles hasn’t seen somebody look at books like that since…since the first time Lydia came in.

“Thank you,” Peter says. His gaze suddenly shifts back to Stiles and it’s the same as when he was looking at the books, not only appreciative, but with real depth behind that appreciation, like he could study Stiles for just as long and—yes, Stiles flushes a little. Hears Peter’s voice burr with amusement as they both look back at their books. “And since you are offering, Stiles, I do intend to take you up on that.”

“Let’s find this ritual,” Stiles mutters. “Get that out of the w—done, I mean.”

Peter laughs. It’s friendly, agreeable, not mocking at all, and Stiles is really, really grateful that they genuinely do have something to do that doesn’t require further discussion. So he hikes up his book and just pretends as if he’s not itching to look through it, and see how much of that laugh is in Peter’s eyes, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One variation of the Wild Hunt links it to Odin and the Norse idea of Valhalla.
> 
> The Sibylline Books was a set of prophecies and other magical texts that the Sibyl of Cumae (a wise-woman) offered to one of the early rulers of Rome, and that the ancient Romans frequently consulted. Rome, of course, was supposedly founded by a pair of twins who were suckled by a she-wolf, and I'm making Deucalion have foreign ties in order to come up with a plausible reason for mashing different cultural traditions together (since as I've said in other places, it annoys me how the show doesn't bother).
> 
> The "zodiac" has evolved over time, with different constellations depending on the period and the culture. The Western one is by no means universal, even now.


	7. Chapter 7

Unfortunately, they don’t locate the exact sections of the Sibylline Books that would describe Deucalion’s proposed ritual before it’s time to saddle up, though they do have a short list of target chapters to look into later. Stiles scribbles them down on a scrap of paper and then tacks the scrap to his writing desk before he heads down to the stables.

Lydia’s already there, mounted with battle standard in one hand, and looking alternately amused and disgusted as Scott tries to convince Peter and Derek to get on another one of the horses. “They’re skeletons,” she finally calls over. “They still have teeth, they _will_ bite, but of course they don’t have any flesh to bruise, and if you accidentally break a bone, we can wire it back together.”

Derek looks unconvinced, standing back with his hands not only away from the reins that Scott keeps waving at him, but jammed firmly in his coat-pockets. “It’s not bone-breaking I’m worried about,” he mutters, eyeing the odd cloud of sparks snorted out by the horse. “Look, we’re werewolves and _you_ all clearly aren’t going to get on one of these, so why do we have to?”

“Because if you’re on the horse, it’s not going to take a wrong step and let you fall out of the sky. It knows where to go,” Erica says, pausing in the middle of shaking out her freshly-unbound hair. She’s been sort of lurking around Derek and when he looks at her, she grins and shimmies her hips, too, so she fully steps out of her trousers and is clad in only a long, loose, man’s shirt. “ _We_ all know where to run, but unless you’re going to keep your nose right on our tails the whole time and step exactly where we step—which some of us wouldn’t mind, but—”

“It’d just be a lot easier to make sure you stay safe if you mount up,” Scott breaks in. He gives Erica a look, and then urges the horse he’s leading forward a few feet, just as Erica starts to pull her shirt over her head. “It’s going to look really different, and once the Hunt gets going, it doesn’t stop.”

He tries to hand the reins to Derek again, and Derek actually backs up a step, lips twitching as if the man is suppressing a snarl. “Maybe this isn’t—”

“Oh, if they make you that nervous, come over here,” Lydia says impatiently. She glances over Stiles as he walks by her, then sighs and snaps her fingers. When he looks over, she points out where he’s got his staff tangled into part of his coat. “You can just ride post behind me, so long as you keep your hands where I tell you.”

Derek looks a little offended. Also, judging by the quick glance he gives Stiles, suspicious that this is some sort of—well, _that_ kind of trap. “I think I’ll be fine.”

“She just means don’t grab the standard, or some other thing that might send you to the Underworld,” Stiles says. He finally frees his staff, then moves it out of the way of a now-shifted Erica, who’s rolled over onto her back and is wriggling along on it, all four paws waving, scratching it against a knot in one of the floorboards. “As long as you hold onto her waist, you’ll be fine.”

“It won’t look strange or anything like that,” Scott hurries to reassure Derek. “We all have done it, when we’ve gotten tired.”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “Either get over here or get on your own horse,” she orders. “But we’re not going back to pick you up, so unless you want to end up impaled on a pine in the middle of the moor, pick one of those two.”

For a second Derek looks as if he might take a different option and just duck into one of the stables, but he’s suddenly given a sharp push from behind. He stumbles forward, then half-turns and glowers as Peter, a borrowed cloak tossed dashingly over one shoulder, waltzes out and takes the reins from Scott.

“It’s very rude to refuse a lady,” Peter chides Derek, just before turning to the horse. He’s not quite as unperturbed as he looks—when the horse tosses its head and coughs out a cloud of smoke, his eyes briefly glow—but he takes hold of the pommel and swings himself into the saddle easily enough. “Especially one who’s been so gracious a hostess.”

Derek doesn’t say anything, just glowers at Peter and then reluctantly stalks over to Lydia—one of the knights’ mounts swings its head towards him and he skitters sideways for a pace—but as he passes by Scott and Erica, they twist around to frown at him, so he’s probably growling at a pitch too low for human hearing. He stops a little short of her outstretched hand; she makes an impatient noise, and then, just as he’s edging forward, spurs her horse forward so she can seize his hand. The horse keeps going a few more steps and Lydia twists herself so the momentum forces Derek into a hop and then lands him behind her in the saddle.

He looks a little wild-eyed, his hands going to her shoulders and then immediately flying off, only to snap back on when she hisses at him. But he seems more or less secure.

Anyway, Lydia hasn’t dropped someone by accident yet, so Stiles leaves them to it and climbs onto his own mount. It seems a little restless today, repeatedly moving its head about so that the balls of fire dancing in its eye-sockets roil towards the doors, and he’s so busy soothing it that he doesn’t notice who’s ridden up to his shoulder until Peter says something.

“Beg your pardon,” Peter says, watching Stiles start and then juggle staff and reins. Now _he_ looks perfectly at home on his mount, to the point that the reins are lying slack against the neck vertebrae and he’s actually controlling it with just his knees. “I’m sorry, should we be silent now?”

“No, you can talk, it’s just—caught me off-guard,” Stiles mutters. He finally gets his staff tucked under his arm and straightens up, then glances down around himself to make sure that his cloak’s hanging correctly. Then he has to blink a drop of sweat out of his eye: it’ll be chilly enough once they’ve gotten up into the sky, but down here on the ground, it’s another sweltering night. “What’s wrong?”

Peter shakes his head. “Oh, no, I wasn’t about to—I only was curious about something. The tales do differ from teller to teller, but they do all seem to say that the Hunt leader—leaders are distinguished by a few traits, which I don’t see…”

Just then, the first rays of the rising moon breach the treetops and sluice through the stable doors. Stiles’ mount stretches its head into the moonlight, the flames shooting out of its nose-holes flaring up, and as it does, a faint glimmer sweeps back over its bones, silhouetting the flesh that had once covered them. It steps further into the light and Stiles finds himself leaning forward, urging it on as the moonlight now falls on him.

He forgets that he’s human clay, for a moment. It’s cold, the clear, crisp cold that only comes in deepest winter, when all the distractions of more temperate seasons have withered or fallen back, leaving only the bare core of things exposed. He’s comfortable in it, shrugging back his cloak to let it enfold him, and as he stretches his hands up to the round, low fruit of the moon, the wind picks up and sends a sweet, bracing swirl down his nose and into his belly, from whence tingling fingers stretch out into every limb.

Stiles lifts his head, and as he does, the weight of a great rack of antlers, with far more points than any living deer will ever achieve, presses down onto his head. But he can bear it. In fact, he hardly feels it, so full is he with the air and the night and the moon. He tastes earth and smoke and blood in his mouth, his feet itch to leap out into the beautiful dark sky. When he closes his left hand, it’s no longer empty, but wraps around a curling hunting horn, the likes of which haven’t been seen in this country for years. The beast whose head had once worn that horn no longer runs in these parts, or indeed, anywhere in the world—except tonight, when the Hunt runs.

But it’s not quite running yet, and as Stiles settles into his Hunt-form, a small noise to his side catches his attention. He turns and then blinks slowly, memories from his worldly form filtering back in and reminding him of who the man staring at him with such naked awe is.

“Oh, sorry,” he says to Peter. “What did you say?”

Peter’s mouth moves a little, soundlessly. His eyes travel from Stiles’ antlers to the horn in Stiles’ hand, and then return to Stiles’ face. His lips part a little more, as if finally about to make a remark. Then he seems to change his mind and smiles at Stiles instead.

The smile is a touch distant, and doesn’t match at all his eyes, where the awe is fading to be replaced with a little nervousness—common—and respect—understandable. There is also a dash of something else, something sharp that goes as soon as it’s spotted, not exactly anger but…Peter’s frustrated, Stiles guesses. He wasn’t expecting this and what he’s actually gotten displeases him, for some reason.

Which doesn’t make much sense, considering how obviously impressed he’d been a moment before. But Stiles doesn’t have the time to dwell on it. The horses are stamping their hooves, the knights’ armor is creaking, and now Lydia’s come riding up, a still-tense Derek gingerly holding her waist, with a questioning look on her face.

“Are you waiting for something?” she asks. “A better moon?”

Stiles snorts at her, then gives himself a shake. Whatever’s bothering Peter, he can ask about it later. He’ll have to ask about it later. Right now, he has other duties to attend to, and all earthly things will just have to wait.

“Just for you,” he says, turning forward again and raising the horn to his lips.

Lydia laughs and tosses her hair, now the fresh crimson of heart’s blood. He blows the first hunting call of the night, the werewolves howling back one by one, and she raises the standard, and their mounts charge forward. The Hunt begins.

* * *

For the first hour, Stiles lets the Hunt have its head. They run north to take up a group of spirits newly-made from a fire that’d raged through half a village, then turn east again, harrying ghosts and careless travelers across several old battlegrounds. 

It’s shaping up to be a good run. Stiles keeps an eye on the knights, but so far they’re all sticking together in a uniform tail and none seem to be wandering away or dropping too far behind. If any did, the werewolves would take turns falling back to herd them up again, but when Stiles listens for their howls, they always sound as if they’re in the middle to front of the Hunt.

He doesn’t hear any unfamiliar howls. Lydia’s slightly behind him, the smoky puffs of her mount singing his coattails, so the next time the Hunt wheels about, he sneaks a quick glimpse back at her and Derek. She catches him, of course, and dips the standard she’s carrying in a salute—also so that he can get a look at Derek, who’s relaxed enough that his grip on Lydia’s cloak isn’t white-knuckled, but who still doesn’t seem to be really taking in the Hunt’s spirit. In Stiles’ experience, the Hunt appeals so deeply to werewolves that they always have to be watched their first time to make sure they don’t lose their heads so badly they’re trampled, or step wrong and fall to the earth. But Derek looks alert and focused—even if what he’s focusing on isn’t what the Hunt is chasing, but the woods flowing by under their feet.

As the last ghost of the latest batch flees into the Underworld, the Hunt’s pace slackens slightly and Stiles senses a matching slackening in the group’s attention. He quickly raises his horn and blows on it to rally them back around, trying to keep the knights from having a single second when one of them might peel away, and then turns them all towards the old oak grove where the Nemeton had once been.

It’s not far from where they are, a few minutes’ ride at most, and they have no obvious target to head towards except for his call, so he lets them keep the lazier pace. Peter had dropped back to the middle soon after their leaving the family estate, but he eases his mount back up now, on the opposite side from Lydia, and comes within speaking range just as they crest the last hill.

“Are we heading for the Nemeton?” he asks.

His hair is a windblown mess, and as Stiles turns to answer him, he notices that the man’s torn off his cravat and pulled his shirt-collar open. Peter’s eyes have a feral sparkle in them that’s far closer to the usual werewolf reaction to the Hunt, though he still looks a fair ways from losing his head.

“Yes,” Stiles says. He blows another blast on the horn, signaling that they’re to stop soon, and then hooks it onto his belt so that he has a hand to point out the grove. It’s clumped onto a small hill-top, set off slightly from the rest of the woods: once the druids would have kept a cleared ring around it, and even though they haven’t been back in generations, the forest still seems to respect what once was. “There. Do you—”

Peter presses his face into the wind. Stiles can’t hear the man sniff, but he can see how Peter’s nostrils flare, how Peter’s lips part slightly and his tongue moves behind them, as if tasting the air too. “He’d come up from the south,” he tells Stiles. “I can see a trail—a stream, it’s a stream. He’d follow it up as far as he could, then circle sideways to approach the gate.”

Scott suddenly pushes out of the train, shifted but two-legged, and panting slightly to keep up with them. “How do you know?”

“The stream’s between him and the gate that way,” Lydia answers. “He could use it to keep some of the ghosts at bay, keep them from crossing to him as long as he can.”

The Hunt’s pace picks up again, sensing the press of the Underworld as they near the gate. A knight drives forward and Scott has to swerve to avoid ending up under the horse’s hooves; Stiles glimpses Allison urging her horse up, then bending to call to Scott to climb up behind her. He doesn’t have the time to see that it happens but trusts that those two will take care of each other. They’re almost on top of the gate and he needs to turn the Hunt or they’ll race right past it.

Stiles does take a moment to look at Lydia, who gestures that she’ll take her half west. He nods and then yanks sharply on the reins of his mount, causing it to rear up and claw the thunderheads with its hooves. Lightning sparks off where the hooves come down, flashing all around them and on down to the grove as the Hunt comes about, swirls and then divides in two, half going with Lydia while the other half gather up behind Stiles.

He’s got Peter with his half. The man crowds up to Stiles, shouting something, but over the thunder Stiles can’t hear him. Then Peter suddenly jerks forward. He looks as if he’s falling out of the saddle and Stiles puts out his arm to grab the man—except Peter’s already seized his elbow, which was what he’d actually been lunging for in the first place.

Peter pulls Stiles’ arm straight, hand swiftly skating down to Stiles’ wrist, and then uses it to point at something far below them. A small figure, right on the edge of the grove, half-hidden by the brush. A man, with eyes that wink red in the blaze of the lightning. He has one hand up, as if he sees them too and means to hail them, while the other is hard to make out in the undergrowth but it looks like it’s holding onto something. Something that’s moving weakly, rustling the bushes…

Stiles leans forward, trying to make it out, and without thinking he drags Peter with him. The man’s breath puffs over his ear, Peter’s half-formed exclamation more felt than heard, and it feels urgent, Stiles thinks. Alarmed.

He’s about to glance back when the lightning shows him what Deucalion—because it has to be Deucalion below—is holding: a black goat with a slashed throat, the last drops of blood running out of the great rent in its flesh into a trench dug into the ground.

A tremor goes through the air. It’s like the shake of air just before a lightning bolt bursts forth, electric and tingling, except that it feels—feels _wrong_. The taste in Stiles’ mouth is bad. It is sour, but there’s a bleariness to it, not the clean bite of a lemon but the muddy, rancid vinegar of spoiled cheap wine. And then the sky trembles again and Stiles _feels_ it, a sharp pull that seems to reach into his body, right into the pit of his gut, and drag at him. It’s like somebody’s thrown a fishing line weighted with lead into him, and it’s drawing him down, down out of the sky.

He tugs at his horse’s reins. It tosses its head back and forth, stabbing its forelegs straight out in front of it, but they continue to sink through the clouds. Stiles yanks again, harder, and then fumbles the horn off his belt and shoves it to his lips. He blows three long blasts, putting so much breath into it that when he’s done, he has to grab at the pommel to keep his place, dazed as he is with the lack of air.

The Hunt begins to turn away from the gate, but it’s sluggish, and he can hear confusion in the shouts of the knights and the neighing of the horses. Then werewolves start to howl, short curt ululations as they try and urge the Hunt’s riders to hurry up. Through a break in the clouds, Stiles glimpses Erica in Lydia’s train across the way, four-footed and driving her shoulder against the hindleg of a lagging knight’s mount. She’s straining at it, as if the horse’s hoof is sunk into quicksand, and not insubstantial clouds that should be smoothing themselves before them.

“Stiles!” Peter shouts. When Stiles looks over, Peter’s strayed a few yards off the main group and he and his horse are standing out alone on a cloud bank. No, not standing—the horse is panicking, head and neck stretched up as its hindparts continue to drop down. Peter has the reins rolled up around one arm and is frantically pointing with the other at the ground.

Down there, Deucalion has let the dead goat fall next to the trench and has both hands in the air. He’s speaking, his mouth is moving, and Stiles realizes that the tremors—now coming in concussive waves that are pressing closer and closer together, each one a hard push downwards—are timed to whatever he’s saying. The wind howls up around them, and the lightning dies away. Even the moon suddenly disappears behind a thick veil of clouds.

Whatever he’s doing, it’s not aimed at ghosts at all. It’s aimed at the _Hunt_ , and inch by inch, is dragging them down to the earth where they’ll be weakened and vulnerable. Already Stiles can see some of the knights fading, their bones thinning out, going brittle, in danger of snapping under the weight of their armor.

“Stiles!” Lydia’s shout carries easily across the rising wind, pitched nearly to a scream as it is. 

She’s warning him to get ready, but he shakes his head. He doesn’t think even her banshee cry will break them free. It might knock Deucalion out, but Stiles can sense the tide of the spell the man is using, and even interrupting him isn’t going to be enough to shift that. 

With all his strength, Stiles hauls back on his mount’s reins and forces it to rear up. The poor thing almost shivers itself apart with the effort, with spectral rivulets of sweat glistening over its bones, but it manages to free its forelegs and stand. When it’s at its highest, Stiles takes his horn and staff—strapped together with his belt—and slings it across the sky.

“Damn it, Stiles!” Lydia shouts furiously at him. He glimpses her wildly-waving battle standard, a second before good old Scott leaps up from the clouds in front of her to catch the horn and staff.

Scott will get that back to Lydia, and in the meantime, Stiles stops yanking at the reins and instead drops low over the horse’s neck to urge it down. He’s less powerful without either of those two items, but they need to stay with the Hunt, or else everything will fall apart. And anyway, they’re not that much use on the ground.

His horse hesitates, rightfully confused, and Stiles gives its ribs a sharp kick. Does his best to ignore the insults Lydia is hurling at him. The horse twists its head uncertainly and then a fresh wave of magic avalanches into them and it can no longer resist even if it wanted to.

It goes cannoning downwards, shrieking madly the whole way, its splayed legs tearing the clouds to tatters as they fall through them. Deucalion’s swinging his arms at them, mouth stretched in a satisfied grin so that Stiles thinks he can count the man’s teeth, they’re coming so close. At the very end, his hands twist around and their fingers curl in a peremptory beckoning gesture, as if he thinks he’s commanding them down.

He _does_ , Stiles suddenly realizes, and that alone sets Stiles’ temper blazing so hot, he doesn’t even miss the lightning. He doesn’t need _that_ to teach some idiotic alpha werewolf a lesson in trying to master something like the Hunt.

As soon as he’s near enough, Stiles kicks free of the stirrups and heaves himself up over the horse’s head. They’ve just dropped below the tallest tree-tops now and he aims for a nice thick one that’s whizzing by.

He hits it. _Hits_ it. It’s like a hill of rocks dumped on top of him and he gasps, head spinning, barely conscious enough to remember to grab at it and keep from falling the rest of the way. The Hunt’s spirit is a thing of air and wind and smoke, and at the first touch of something earth-bound, like the tree, it’s driven right out of him and he’s left mortal and shaken, clinging to the branch.

Something’s going on below him, all snarls and snapping bone and heavy thuds—his horse. He twists himself up and onto the branch, then looks down. His vision’s still swimming and he slaps himself on the cheek to try and settle it faster.

At first all he sees are the white bones clattering in the air, and he thinks that maybe his horse has not only landed on Deucalion, but has stomped the werewolf flat. But then there’s a _snap_ , as if it’s the very ribs of the heavens that have been broken, and from all around comes a chilling scream, right next to him and from miles off at the same time. His poor horse, dying a second and final time.

That clears Stiles’ head: that mount hasn’t always been the Hunt leader’s mount, but it’s ridden in the Hunt for generations and given good service, and it doesn’t deserve to have its marrow sucked out by some crazed alpha werewolf who’s lost _two_ packs. 

He scrabbles to the end of the branch, as far as he can go before it breaks under him, and takes a closer look. Deucalion’s still distracted with digging himself out from under the pile of bones that had once made up Stiles’ mount, so Stiles has a bare second to assess what the man’s been doing: dead goat, trench filled with blood, a lantern with its door angled to cast a beam of light on a piece of paper held down by a rock. The blood should be to feed and placate the spirits of the dead, that’s common enough in certain branches of necromancy, but normally that shouldn’t have any power over the spirits of the Hunt. They might be dead, but they’re filled enough with the Hunt that they don’t hunger for the living the way that ordinary ghosts do.

Whatever ritual Deucalion’s used, it must have found a way to change that, and draw the Hunt’s specters as powerfully as it would any other ghost. Stiles eyes the paper, but then a wolf-howl from above makes him discard that option: from the sound of it, the Hunt’s barely holding itself above the trees now and it’ll take him too long to read through the spell.

Anyway, it would just have the words. The real draw will always be the blood, so Stiles needs to find a way to get rid of it. He looks around and spots an earth-stained pick leaning against another tree.

Just then, Deucalion throws off the last few bones and stands up straight. He turns around and meets Stiles’ eyes, lips peeled back from his fangs. A low snarl comes from him, distinctly and grimly satisfied.

Stiles isn’t so far up the tree that a werewolf couldn’t jump at him. And he needs the pick anyway, both to defend himself and to cut out that trench so that the blood will drain away. So he gets his feet under him and then hurls himself off the branch, towards that other tree.

Behind him, right in the spot where he’d been, comes a loud crashing and then the repeated crack of branches. He’s in the other tree’s canopy now but hasn’t quite gotten a handhold yet, his fingers and boots slipping through the branches, and something tells him—he ducks his head and lets himself drop just as Deucalion, whipping about inhumanly fast, lands in the top of the same tree. 

The ground’s soft here, with a thick layer of dead leaves to cushion Stiles’ landing so it isn’t quite as jarring as the first. He rolls as soon as he can, not wanting Deucalion to fall on top of him, and then curses and scrambles back when he realizes he’s going in the opposite direction of the pick. It’s not against the trunk anymore—Stiles curses again, then spots the glint of the head in the grass.

Pouncing on it, he frantically whirls around and stares up over his head, bringing the pick up so that he can take a good swing if he has to…only to see empty branches. Stiles stares for a moment, utterly confused, and then jumps as a heavy object slamming into a nearby tree creates a rattling shower of acorns, some of which bounce off his arm.

“God _damn_ it,” grunts the man struggling up to his feet next to Stiles. Peter flicks off an acorn, then frowns as he notices some blood on his fingertips. He brings his hand up to his face, then claps it over his mouth as he coughs roughly. Bloody spittle flies out between his fingers, which he then wipes off on the trunk behind him. “We all know you’ve no respect for tradition, Blackwood, but you could—at least a little recognition—for _quality_. Do you have _any_ idea how rare this brocade is?”

Across the clearing—and more importantly, away from the trench of blood—a hulking shadow rears up and resolves into Deucalion. He’s smiling, his eyes burning like hot coals, and in one hand he’s holding a splintered horse femur like a club. “Still the fop, I see,” he drawls. “Always discontented with the wrong thing. No wonder your sister preferred to die than to wait around to see you take her power from her.”

Peter stills. His eyes were already glowing but now they’re so bright they look like bits of foxfire in his face. And then, unsmiling, he hunches down. His clothes split down his arching back, falling away in tatters as he rises up again, four-footed, tail lashing angrily as he lets out a roar that echoes through the woods. Bloody froth dribbles from his nose and jaw, but it just seems to heighten the mad fury in his eyes.

Deucalion lets out a high, almost bird-like shout of laughter and just stretches himself even taller, huge muscles bulging out of the growing rents in his clothing as he shifts into a grotesque wolf-headed, two-legged monster. He roars back at Peter, brandishing his bone club over his head, and then rushes forward.

He’s running at _Stiles_ , not Peter. Stiles stumbles backward, trying to bring up the pick, and then hastily changes his swing just before Peter cuts in front of him, leaping up at Deucalion’s throat. Peter doesn’t get his teeth in, Deucalion grabbing him before he can, but his weight sends the two of them tumbling over and tumbling, snarling and growling, clods of turf kicking up from their claws.

Stiles leaves them and darts for the trench of blood. Deucalion notices and wrenches himself after Stiles, but Peter’s doggedly clinging to him, and slows him enough that Stiles can jump over his outstretched hand. And easily dodge the femur Deucalion flings at him—true, Peter’s gnawing at Deucalion’s shoulder, but that throw was a good mile off.

Not that Stiles has time to gloat about it. He can hear thrashing in the treetops and is terrified that the Hunt might already have sunk too far to recover, that they’ll all be grounded, and so he throws himself at the trench.

Something’s in the way. Some kind of—he can’t quite see it, it’s a little less visible than the fog that billows in from the sea. Kind of a thickening in the air, making him feel as if he’s moving through honey, and then he starts to feel the hands on him. He’s wading through spirits, all clustered about the trench.

But it’s all wrong again. They should be getting more visible, more intelligible, as they suck up the blood, but instead it’s as if they’re fading away. And _he_ can’t seem to reach them—him, a leader of the Hunt, someone who was born with one foot in the world of the dead. To him, of all people, they shouldn’t simply be shadows.

Well, whatever’s going, Stiles will stop it here and now. He forces himself to the one end of the trench, braces his feet, and drives the pick into the side of the trench. And then again and again, pocking it as many times as he can so that the blood will soak into the earth and dissipate before whatever magic in it can fully take hold.

He thinks it’s working. As the trench empties out, the cries overhead turn from desperate to relieved, and when he finally stops to risk a look over his head, he can see that the moon’s come back out from behind its curtain. The Hunt is still far too low in the sky, but the knights and other riders are silhouetted against the bright silver orb, clearly taking strength from it. They’ll clear the trees, and rise away from this place.

“—torn _your_ throat out, and left you broken-backed over your own step,” comes a vicious hiss from behind Stiles. Deucalion, reeling back against a tree with half a dozen wounds on him, but even as Stiles watches, they knit up cleanly. “But I thought I’d give her a taste of her so-called ‘mercy’ and take her children first, and let her see what could be done when all she had was _you_ to rely on.” 

He’s not speaking to Stiles, but it takes Stiles a moment to pick out Peter, so torn up is the ground between the two. Then a lump at the far end of the clearing jerks up and Peter’s voice, clotted with pain but still infuriated, rings out. “I told her to kill you when you lost your sight,” he snarls. “Told her—nothing of an alpha, too drunk on silly dreams to see when his own pack had lost faith in him. Should’ve—not bothered, just done it _myself_. She would have forgiven me, Blackwood. You were never more than a guest—I was her _blood_ and you knew it.”

Peter’s back to human, on his hands and knees, and he’s covered with blood. Even as Stiles watches, one of his arms collapses under him, dropping him back to his elbow. The impact jars a hurting grunt from him, but it hardly interrupts his stream of vitriol—which is all burning right to the heart, judging from the way Deucalion suddenly spreads his arms and lets out a bellow of rage.

Stiles doesn’t have his horn or staff, and here on the earth without them, he doesn’t know that he has enough power to call down the Hunt. Lydia won’t be watching for him, she’ll be too busy trying to keep them together—the look of them in the sky is still so disorganized, he guesses that the magic Deucalion called up hasn’t yet fully waned. And all he has is a pick, and a crowd of blood-befuddled ghosts, and—Stiles pivots on his heel, exclaiming at his own stupidity.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpses Deucalion turn towards him. Peter shouts Deucalion’s name—it’s not just angry, there’s a desperate note in it, him trying to get Deucalion’s attention back. Deucalion seems to realize it, since he lets out a snarl of a laugh and says something about beating Peter at his own game.

He shouldn’t have wasted the time gloating. By then Stiles has found the spot where the gate should be and smashed the tip of the pick into it.

Stiles swings a little harder than he needs to in his rush, driving it so deep into the soft earth that he has to brace his foot against the dirt a few inches back to yank it out again. As he pulls it out, the turf peels away from the hole, the way petals peel out of the bud, to reveal a beautiful iridescent shimmering—strands of a silver netting stretched over the gap.

But they only are there for a second. The land of the dead is always close to that of the living, and it doesn’t take much to encourage it to spill over. The netting strains, bulges upwards, and then parts as a shrieking flood of ghosts bursts through it. Men and women and children, hollow-eyed, ragged nails out to clutch and tear, calling and calling for all that they’ve lost.

They stream past Stiles with such force that the wind of their wake half-spins him. Then he drives the pick back into the ground, anchoring himself, and steadies in time to see a dark form smashing its way through the trees. Deucalion fleeing. When Stiles listens, he hears countless voices crying out for the man.

Stiles steps back, the spirits reluctantly parting to make way for him. He eyes the hole, then drops the pick and takes out a knife to slash his palm. Once he’s got a good layer of blood over his hand, he stoops and gathers up a handful of dirt, clumping it into the blood.

Enough ghosts have come out to keep Deucalion busy, so he’s going to seal up the hole before so many come out that he gets in trouble with the Underworld itself—there’s no way Stiles can spin this as just research now, and he’s cringing a little at what his father is going to think—when he suddenly hears a hoarse cry from Peter. It’s not just pained, it’s _afraid_ too.

He twists around just in time to see the ghost of a woman separate herself from the torrent rushing after Deucalion and step towards where Peter is still lying on the ground. Peter’s raised up on one arm, staring at her with wide eyes, and when she takes another step, he shifts backward before suddenly catching himself and grimacing in pain.

Stiles hesitates, then swears and tosses the bloody dirt at the hole behind him. That’ll slow down the ghosts but it won’t close the gate properly, but Peter fought Deucalion so Stiles had the time to open up the gate in the first place. It’s not fair to leave him to whoever the woman is.

The woman stops where she is. She says something to Peter, who flinches before muttering something back. He looks—looks ashamed. His head drops slightly and then he abruptly pushes it back up, angry and defiant. He starts to say something, only for the woman to throw back her head. Her shoulders are shaking a little, and Stiles thinks she might be laughing.

By then he’s over to them, stopping only to scoop up a fresh handful of dirt. He squeezes that, forcing the blood out of his cut palm into it, and then flings it between the ghost and Peter as he skids up next to them. Peter starts, looking at Stiles and then at the woman, and Stiles turns and—

She’s gone. If she’s rejoined the stream of spirits coming out of the gate, Stiles can’t make her out.

“Stiles,” Peter grunts.

“Who was…” Then Stiles shuts up as he turns and gets a good look at Peter. He knows werewolves are hardy, even the betas, and can survive injuries that look absolutely horrendous, but—but Peter does look horrendous. He drops to one knee beside the other man, just stopping himself from touching Peter’s shoulder—he’s not sure where he _can_ touch, Peter’s so bloody—and then shakes himself. Sitting there isn’t going to help, so he yanks off his cloak and starts tucking it around the other man. “Wait, wait, don’t—don’t die on me, let me call down a horse and we’ll get you back to the house—”

The chuckle Peter lets out is ragged but genuine. “Oh, I’m not about to crawl down there _yet_ ,” he says, with a weak nod towards the gate. Then he looks up at Stiles. “Speaking of—don’t you need to stop that up, or else…”

“Oh. Right.” Stiles leaves off Peter and starts to get to his feet, only to think that he should get Peter wrapped up and onto a horse first. Then he changes his mind—he has duties, and sometimes they’re not what he wants to do but they need to be done or else it won’t just be what’s in front of him that is going wrong, it’ll be _everything_ , across the living and the dead. Both of them look to the Hunt, his parents always told him.

And then…and then…

Stiles’ mother walks out of the gate, smiling at him. Her hands are slightly lifted towards him, and her head is at that slight tilt where she’s about to shake it at him, because he knows better. Even though she still smiles at him, because she loves him.

Stiles stops. So does she. _Son_ , her voice says in his head. _Son, go home. The Hunt is over._

Her right arm lifts till it’s pointed directly at the moon overhead. She stands there, poised at the rim of the gate, and a sudden rush of wind circles around them. There are faces in it, hundreds of them, flashing by with mouths open or closed, smiling or scowling, all spinning up and then funneling down into the gate behind his mother.

Then she’s gone. The gate is shut. And Stiles’ knees are more than a little shaky, as he sinks back down by Peter and absently tugs his cloak up the man’s back.

“Who was that?” Peter says.

Thankfully, before Stiles has to answer, there’s a second gust of wind and then Lydia is hovering over them, worry fading out of her face to be fast-replaced with fury. “Come on, get up,” she says, jerking a second mount forward by the reins. “Derek ran off with the knights and now we’ve got a whole forest full of—”

Peter tries to stand, has his eyes roll back into his head, and slumps against Stiles’ knees just as Stiles grabs his shoulders. Stiles bites his lip, listening to the man try to stifle his groans, and then looks up at an equally tight-lipped Lydia. “He and Deucalion,” is all he says.

“Fine. Take him, I’ll go with Scott and find Derek,” Lydia says after a moment. She drops the end of the reins into Stiles’ outstretched hand, then turns her mount’s head about. Then she stops and looks back over her shoulder.

“I’m going home,” Stiles tells her. “I—Mom said it’s over for tonight, so I’m going—I’ll tell Dad. Don’t worry about that, just round them up.”

Lydia hesitates, and not only because she wants the full story. But she knows just as well as he does the dangers of letting the Hunt’s riders run on till dawn, so in the end, she nods curtly and then spurs her horse on, leaving Stiles to get Peter up onto the second one and get them home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In some versions of the Wild Hunt, the leader is depicted as having deer antlers.
> 
> Per several cultures' folklore, running water is supposed to bar several types of evil creatures from following.
> 
> The goat's blood, trench, and attracting ghosts idea is from the _Aeneid_ , where a sibyl recommended that Aeneas do that in order to gain knowledge from the dead.


	8. Chapter 8

Much to Stiles’ surprise, his father isn’t already home when he and Peter arrive. A nervous-looking Jackson _is_ , and he promptly balks as Stiles helps Peter down from the horse. “What did you _do_?” he yelps, skittering back even though the closest drops of blood are landing a good foot from his boot-tips. “Since when did we start bringing them back alive? Aren’t you supposed to let them fall through the gates when they look like this?”

“Oh, shut up,” Stiles grunts, hunching up to try and get Peter’s arm more securely over his shoulders. Then he hisses at Jackson as the man tries to creep off. “I said shut up, not go away. Look, we ran into—Deucalion and he—Hunt was—anyway, Peter got in a fight with him and get the door, would you? Can do that while you’re sneering.”

Jackson screws up his face the entire time, but he does at least hold the door open for Stiles to drag Peter through. Peter’s heavy, and while his pulse is still beating strongly, he’s been drifting in and out of consciousness the entire way back. It’s probably the blood loss—they need to get his wounds packed with dressings or stitched up to stop that.

“Where’s everybody else?” Jackson asks suddenly. He steps out into the stable, then comes back in with an anxious expression. “Stiles, you’re not seriously—you’re not telling me that the whole _Hunt_ got lost—”

“I’m not even telling you, I’m kind of busy here. You know. If you hadn’t noticed,” Stiles mutters. His grip on Peter’s slipping so much that he has to stop and prop the man up against the wall so he can get a fresh hold on the man’s waist. “No, the Hunt’s fine, they’re still out with Lydia, I had to breach a gate for a few minutes to chase Deucalion off and—”

Sometimes, when Jackson lets out that one screech of his, as if somebody’s chomped his tail, he makes Stiles wonder if there isn’t a little banshee in him somewhere, and that’s why he and Lydia had their little dalliance. “ _You did what_?”

One of Peter’s arms is in the way, knocking up under Stiles’ chin whenever he tries to close his arms around Peter’s waist. Stiles tries to maneuver around it, fails, and finally hikes Peter against the wall so he can just turn the man and swing it away from him. “Look, I don’t have time right now, can you just shut up and get out of the way if you’re not going to help—”

And suddenly Peter’s eyes snap open. He goes stiff against Stiles, then whips around, snarling, claws flashing out just as Stiles starts to raise his hands to calm the man down. To his credit, Jackson’s immediate reaction is to shove himself between them, knocking Stiles away as a stray swipe of Peter’s shreds the hem of Stiles’ coat. 

But then Jackson jerks back, growling and clutching at his jaw, with blood dripping out from between his fingers. He drops into a defensive crouch, while against the wall, Peter snarls even louder and rakes at the air.

“Hey!” Stiles shouts. He catches himself on one knee, then pushes himself back up and snaps his fingers to get their attention. “Hey! Hey, stop, it’s—we’re home, it’s Jackson, you’re still _bleeding_ —”

Peter’s head swivels towards him but the man doesn’t sheath his claws; Jackson hisses and shifts back towards Stiles, keeping himself between them. For a second Peter stares at Stiles without a flicker of recognition in his eyes. He’s trembling, a coiled spring ready to unleash itself.

And then a harder shiver goes through him. He stumbles and puts one hand down against the floor, then shakes his head. Glances up at Stiles again and halfway through that, starts to collapse. Biting back a curse, Stiles rushes forward and just gets his hands under Peter’s head before the man cracks that against the floor.

“Damn,” Peter mumbles, his lip dragging a trail of red-laced spit over Stiles’ palm. “Damn, damn… _damn_. That damned…dishonest son of a _whore_ …”

“Stop bleeding,” Stiles sighs. Then he hears himself. He makes a face and puts his knee up so that he can brace Peter’s head against it, freeing up one arm. “Well, look, I know that’s not really your fault but stop—stop making it worse till we get you to the…the kitchen and…and would you stop standing around and get some bandages? And my kit?”

That’s to Jackson, who’s still busy feeling his jaw, even though _he’s_ not bleeding anymore. He looks up slowly, as if not sure who in this otherwise empty hall Stiles could possibly be ordering around. Then he starts and looks back at the stable door. “Look, don’t you think your father’s going to—”

“I’ll take care of him, I promise he won’t blame you, now will you just go get what I told you?” Stiles snaps. “Look, it’s fine. The Hunt’s fine. The gate’s closed up again and Lydia is cleaning up, and I don’t want Peter here to _die_ so get my kit and meet me in the kitchen, all right?”

Jackson stands up. Takes a step away from them, hesitates, and then edges back just as Stiles is trying to maneuver his free arm under Peter. “You’re sure he won’t try and maul you?”

“Well, what are you going to do? Just stand there and watch?” Stiles says.

Which is unfair, seeing as Jackson’s already jumped in between them once, but everywhere Stiles touches on Peter seems to ooze fresh blood and he’s honestly starting to get really worried about the man. He might have to just doctor Peter in the hall, at this rate.

“Fine,” Jackson says through gritted teeth. And then he comes over and gets Peter’s other arm. “It’s _just_ last year’s suit, anyway.”

Between the two of them, they stand Peter on his feet. Peter’s making an effort to work with them, but his breathing keeps stuttering and Stiles doesn’t want him to use up any more strength than he has to, so Stiles slings one arm around his waist and tilts him so his head and shoulders are sagging onto Stiles more. That’s when he realizes that Peter’s actually laughing.

“Trust me, about time you threw it out,” Peter gasps. “You don’t have the legs to pull off that cut.”

“Don’t _drop_ him,” Stiles hisses over Peter’s head, catching the twitch in Jackson’s eye. “Kitchen, get my kit, and then you can go complain about your clothes in peace.”

Jackson grumbles something under his breath that just makes Peter chortle more, but he stays to get Peter all the way into the kitchen and onto the nearest table. He _doesn’t_ stay to help Stiles fill up pots of water and start a fire under them, but so long as he’s actually getting Stiles’ kit from his room, Stiles will let that go.

“I’ll heal,” Peter says. He lies still for a moment, then suddenly sucks in his breath and tries to pull up one of his legs. His head rises off the table and his knee bends up a few inches before he slumps roughly back, groaning.

The water’s not even warm yet, but Stiles grabs a handful of clean towels and a pitcher and hurries back over to the table. “Right, and is that before or after you turn into one of those ghosts I just let loose on Deucalion?” he mutters.

It’d looked as if Peter was trying to get at his foot, so Stiles takes the man’s ankle in hand and has a look. There’s a set of slashes starting mid-thigh on Peter and winding down his leg, and they start bleeding again as Stiles tries to lift the ankle. He grimaces and wads up a towel against the deepest part of the slashes, pushing down as hard as he dares.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll be joining that company quite yet,” Peter says. His voice is harsh with pain, but somehow, he still manages to sound amused. “Far too many of them, for one. At this point haunting Blackwood would be such a…a _common_ thing to do, and I do have the family reputation to uphold.”

“And that’s your priority right now, the family reputation,” Stiles says under his breath. He bites his lip as the towel shifts under his hand; he’s trying not to let it move but Peter’s a little too far over for him to stretch easily and the blood-soaked scraps of the man’s trousers are making the towel slip.

There’s room on the table so Stiles switches to gripping Peter’s leg with one hand and then hikes himself up with the other. He shuffles up to straddle Peter’s knee, pushing on the towel, but accidentally knocks into Peter’s ankle with one of his knees. Peter hisses and Stiles jerks his leg away, apologizing, but then Peter keeps trying to reach for his foot. Which isn’t doing anything for his injuries, so Stiles twists around for another look.

The man’s scrabbling at the side of his ankle, which is clotted up with blood and dirt. Stiles presses his lips together, then decides Peter’s leg has slowed bleeding enough that he can let go of it for a second. He starts to fold up another towel so he can wrap it round the ankle, and then Peter twists his foot around as if trying to scratch it against the table, and enough of the blood comes off that Stiles can see something sticking out of it.

“Hold on. Hold on—look, just hold still for a second, all right? I’ll get it,” Stiles says, grabbing for Peter’s shin. He winces as Peter grunts in pain, then steels himself and starts prodding around whatever it is that’s stuck in Peter’s ankle. “It’s like you _want_ to hurt yourself more than he did.”

Peter struggles for another second, then goes limp, his head thudding dully against the table. It’s almost enough to make Stiles turn around, but just then Peter lets out a sarcastic groan, proving he hasn’t knocked himself out. Yet.

“Oh, I’m not that sort of masochist,” Peter says. He sucks his breath a little as Stiles pinches the thing between his fingers. “Just—have the advantage of experience. This isn’t going to kill me.”

Stiles feels around some and decides that whatever it is, the thing has probably caught on the bone so pulling it out shouldn’t result in that much more bleeding. He gets a good grip on its end, braces his knee so it won’t jar Peter if he slides, and then gives the thing a firm yank.

Peter goes quiet a moment. His toes curl sharply and their nails briefly lengthen into claws. Then he lets out a long, slow exhale. It’s so long that he’s still at it when Stiles turns around to get the thing into the firelight, and ends up made ragged by a derisive snort. “Unfortunately, that’s merely the sheath. It’s not enough to lend us any insight into his thoughts, even if those were likely to be in the least bit rational.”

Stiles looks at the piece of claw a little longer, then pockets it for later. That’s probably true, based on some fooling around he’s done with Scott, but there are other magics you can use bits of a person’s body for, and with werewolves it doesn’t get much more personal than a claw. “Well, you did say he’s not so insane that he can’t put together a plan, and I—I forgot to grab that paper he had with him, damn it. I should tell Lydia—”

“He took it with him,” Peter says, with enough certainty that Stiles gives him another look. Peter shrugs almost elegantly before another shiver of pain wracks him. “I was looking for it as well. And yes, he can still plan, but the memories in an alpha’s claws are memories, not a library. The first ones that you’ll see are the ones that mean the most to him, not the ones that mean the most to you. And God knows what kind of memory you’d have to wade through to get to anything useful, the way he is these days.” 

“Oh, I didn’t—” Stiles starts, and then Jackson bangs through the doors and Peter starts and tries to heave himself over into a crouching position.

To be honest, it wasn’t exactly a good time to learn more about werewolves anyway. Not unless it has to do with pounding up poultices and trying to scrape dirt out of wounds and then stitching everything up. And it’s probably all Peter can do to just keep his claws stabbed into the table, and not to stick them into Stiles. Or Jackson, who is mostly relegated to the poultice-pounding but who occasionally has to help out just because Stiles can’t hold a needle and squeeze the lips of a wound together _and_ prop up Peter so the man isn’t straining himself. 

Jackson complains the entire time that he has no idea what he’s doing, but he doesn’t twist anything he’s not supposed to and Peter doesn’t maul him _on purpose_ , so it works, more or less. They get the worst of the injuries sewed up. When the water boils, they get Peter wiped down too, then wrap up everything in clean linen bandages. Then Stiles sends Jackson off to get rid of the dirty towels and also to keep watch for the returning Hunt, and takes a moment to catch his own breath.

He’s echoed, a little more heavily, by Peter, and looks down to see the other man staring up at him from where…Peter took the brunt of Deucalion’s attacks on his left side, with deep slashes from hip to thigh and then again around the shoulder and upper arm, but the cuts at his shoulder cross his back so Stiles had pushed the man up against him to reach around and wrap the bandages over them. Just after tying them off, Stiles had lost about all the strength he’d had, so Peter had just slumped where he was. Which puts his head on Stiles’ lap. Also, they pulled off what parts of his clothes hadn’t shredded, so aside from the bandages, he’s naked.

“Let me assure you, I’m in no condition to do anything about your virtue,” Peter says, not so exhausted that he can’t have an amused glint in his eye. “Then again, that probably should be assuring your fiancée, shouldn’t it?”

“Oh, Lydia wouldn’t—she’s not like that,” Stiles says. “Really. I know she’s…protective but that’s not the same thing, if you got to know her better.”

Peter’s brows rise skeptically. “If I am fortunate enough to be allowed that experience, I’ll certainly seek it out.”

“She’s not here, anyway.” And she and the Hunt are later than usual, going by the clock in the corner. On the other hand, Stiles thinks, ‘usual’ doesn’t normally include rounding up that many loose spirits. He grimaces to himself, remembering that mess.

“How serious a problem will it be? The breach in the gate?” Peter asks, as if reading Stiles’ mind. He looks apologetic when Stiles glances at him again, tucking his chin down slightly, but he still goes on. “It didn’t seem as if you had a choice, from where I was, but I can imagine that something like that is…not expected.”

Stiles grimaces again. “Little worse than not expected,” he mutters, absently rubbing at the side of his face. Then he realizes it’s itching because he’s got Peter’s dried blood smeared into his hair, and sighs and pulls over the last remaining towel to mop himself off. “Look, don’t worry about it, that wasn’t on you anyway.”

“I really don’t see how you can say that,” Peter says sharply. This time when Stiles looks down, he doesn’t look the faintest bit regretful. He does, however, look…it’s warm, whatever’s in his eyes. Warm in a way that makes Stiles fidget. “Your doing that kept him from killing me. And he would have, I’ll admit. I do think I’m capable but I’m not an alpha.”

There’s a faint twist in Peter’s voice at the end, almost bitter, but Stiles doesn’t see it in the man’s eyes. Granted, he’s still a little preoccupied with being embarrassed. “I wasn’t just doing it to save you,” he admits himself. “I mean, I was—that was a benefit, for sure, but I was thinking about the Hunt. Whatever he was doing, it was like—like he was forcing us to him. To the ground. You’re not supposed to be able to do that. We’re not like a demon you can just call up whenever you want and bind to your service. If you could do that to us, you could probably do anything you wanted to anyone.”

And, Stiles also admits, that’s really terrifying, even to somebody like him, somebody who harries the restless dead. Sure, the Hunt is powerful and all, but it still has its place and its role, and to twist that around, to make it just obey somebody’s whims instead of doing its job…to make all the people that are part of it do that, Scott, Allison, Lydia, all the werewolves and the knights—Stiles shivers.

Peter had gone quiet, letting him think, but the man stirs again now. “He wasn’t able to complete the ritual, and I think this should narrow down the possibilities considerably,” he says soberly. The side of his mouth twitches as he shifts—the wooden table’s probably not that comfortable, and he’s hurt and been on it for a while now—and then he lets out a gusty sigh. “At any rate, while I am wary of the man, I also wouldn’t consider him invincible. He’s been defeated before.”

Something in Peter’s tone makes Stiles look closely at him. “When you said you knew this wasn’t going to kill you…”

“Oh. _Oh_ …oh, no, no, I didn’t mean him. He’s nowhere _near_ what happened to me then,” Peter says, with a rough, dark humor. He’s still lightened up from a moment ago—which confirms that his mood had been as vicious as Stiles had initially thought. “No, _that_ little arson was courtesy of the Argents. That sister of Christopher’s, if he’s mentioned her to you.”

“He did, actually,” Stiles says. Then he thinks that came out touchy, and he’s not; he’s just aware that his father seems very attached to Chris, and aside from that, Chris _has_ been a great steward and has seemed fine with all of the werewolves living with them. If Chris gets a little sensitive around Scott, that’s because Allison is his daughter, not because Scott’s a werewolf. “I mean, just that he mentioned her, and the feud the rest of his family had with your family. He hasn’t really gone into details.”

Peter looks surprised that Chris talked about that at all, but not about the rest. “Well, as I’ve said, and as I’ll keep saying, that’s not only past, it’s giving them far too much credit to keep bringing them up, as if they’re the only terrible thing that’s happened to my family. But I was…injured in that fire, badly enough that my sister thought I might not survive. So I do think I’d recognize being on the brink of dying now.”

“Still, let’s not test that one,” Stiles mutters.

“If I didn’t know any better, Stiles, I’d say you’re growing fond of me,” Peter says, with a smile that says he absolutely knows better. And then he turns his head away, shifting it on Stiles’ lap, as Stiles gapes down at him. “What I meant about Blackwood being defeated—I was referring to my sister. She did fend him off, even if that ultimately weakened her so much that he’s arguably her murderer.”

“You don’t really sound like it’s an argument,” Stiles observes. Then he drops his towel and reaches for Peter’s arm. He twists his head away from the other man as he does, so he can hide the face he’s making around the foot he’s just firmly shoved in his mouth. “Um, anyway, let’s get you to a bed, you should try and, well, sleep it off—”

Peter obligingly lifts his shoulder. As much as he can, anyway, seeing as he’s still weak from blood loss. “Generally all there is for it, as a werewolf,” he grunts.

Stiles makes some kind of acknowledging noise, but mostly he’s preoccupied with trying to get Peter off the table without tearing the man’s stitches. He ends up hopping down first and shuffling Peter over one shoulder, then sort of walking Peter off. That mostly avoids a jarring landing as Peter’s feet hit the floor, but then Stiles realizes that in his efforts to not grab hold of a bandaged body part, he’s gotten one hand on Peter’s buttock.

He immediately tries to move it, only to have Peter start to slip out of his grip. Peter clutches at the back of Stiles’ shirt, but doesn’t stop sliding until Stiles bows to the inevitable and just puts his hand back where it was. “Sorry,” Stiles mutters. “I’ll, um, there’s a room just down the hall you can use for now, I’ll just make this quick.”

“Can’t be helped,” Peter says, and…pushes his face against the side of Stiles’ hair. Which could just be down to the way they’re shuffling along, but then he takes a good, long sniff, and Stiles _can_ tell the difference between that and just a breath.

“You can’t be enjoying this,” Stiles says.

“Well, I’m really not sure what else I could be doing,” Peter says quite cheerfully. He does hiss when Stiles elbows open the door and accidentally knocks him into the jamb, but then he snuggles right back into Stiles’ neck. And that is snuggling that he’s doing. “Anger would be a complete waste of energy better saved for when I have a real opportunity, and I have never seen the point in being embarrassed about something beyond my control.”

Stiles rolls his eyes before he can help himself. “I don’t know if this is _exactly_ beyond your control—”

“So you’d rather I take offense at your manhandling?” Peter says.

“All right, no, but—” The downside of Peter snuggling is that he probably can feel every bit of Stiles’ growing flush. And Stiles can definitely feel Peter smirking when he stumbles and hikes Peter up by the ass in order to not drop the man. “Anyway, almost—almost there—”

It’s not much of a room, with barely enough space for a cot and a stand with a washbasin, but it’s not meant for someone to permanently live in it. The cooks use it if one of them has a dish cooking overnight, and sometimes Stiles has seen Chris crawling out of it when the man’s too tired to go all the way back to his rooms and Stiles’ father isn’t around to carry him there. Stiles doesn’t mean for Peter to use it for long either, but just figures it’ll do while he goes and gets somebody to tidy up a proper guest chamber for the man.

Except once he tips Peter onto the bed, his knees sag and he finds himself slumping against the wall, blinking hard. He’s really tired.

“Do you think that that ritual drained you?” Peter asks.

Stiles looks up. “What?”

“You’ve been—you’ve been a little pale since we returned,” Peter says after a moment, looking a little less certain of himself. “I wasn’t sure if that was how it always is, or whether that might have been a side-effect…”

“Or it could’ve been me opening the gate the way I did,” Stiles mutters. He breathes in deeply, then pushes himself off the wall and looks around. Finds a spare lantern and lights the wick, then sets it on the stand and tweaks the door so that the light mostly falls on Peter. “I’m not—I’m not dead, you know. Or even undead, the way that the knights are. I’m still alive, and anything alive—being near the Underworld’s not going to be healthy for you. And I really opened it wide if M—I opened it.”

Peter’s alert enough to catch the way Stiles stops himself and to look curious about it, but he doesn’t ask. “I never knew mortals led the Hunt.”

“Well, I’m not…exactly that either,” Stiles says. Then he stops again, because that explanation leads into why he stopped before. And _then_ he gives himself a hard shake, because this is a man who jumped between him and an alpha. He does owe Peter something of an explanation. “We’re mortal in this life, but we have special powers, obviously. And when this life ends, we don’t…really die. I mean, we do go on to the Underworld, but for us it’s more like—like changing houses. Except for the whole part where we can’t talk to people still on this side of life whenever we want, anyway.”

“But that seems like rather an important restriction. At least to me, but then, I do have the usual mortal perspective, my ability to heal aside,” Peter says, his tone shading to self-deprecating at the end. He shifts a little, off his wounded side and also to look more directly at Stiles, and the candlelight runs down his body, softening some of the bruises so they blend into the shadows, and calling out instead the cream of his skin. “If I’d been able to speak to my sister—”

It takes a moment for Stiles to notice how sharply Peter had cut himself off, since he’s busy being disgusted at himself for, well, admiring the other man when Peter’s in such bad shape. Oddly, by the time he does, Peter hasn’t pulled on one of those polite or charming faces, but still has the same bitter, wistful, genuinely raw look in his eyes.

“She was there, back there,” Peter suddenly says, flicking his gaze back to Stiles. “She came out of the gate. I suppose I should have expected that—Deucalion did kill her. She pushed him back, kept us alive a little longer, but without the injuries he gave her, that damned hunter never would have caught up.”

“It wasn’t an Argent, was it?” Stiles blurts out. Then he winces. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

But Peter just shakes his head. “No. It would have been more—respectful if it had been, actually. Even a lunatic Argent would still have had a name of note, and not some jumped-up peasant…Talia knew she wasn’t recovering, but she didn’t pass on what she should have. If she had, perhaps we wouldn’t have fallen apart after she died, and added another pack to Blackwood’s tally.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says again, when it seems as if Peter is finished. He fidgets and then makes himself meet the other man’s eyes. Just because he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t mean he should treat Peter as if that’s Peter’s fault. “Did she—was she…if you think she might come after you—well, the castle’s got plenty of protections against that, and I can put up more.”

“What? Oh, no, it hardly was that sort of confrontation,” Peter says, a little startled. He pauses, then snorts and lets his head drop cheek-first to the bed. “In fact, I’m not even sure she was there to harry Blackwood. She always did give him too much slack, even when he was after us—and if she’d just told _me_ so we wouldn’t be so damned desperate to get her claws back now…she was laughing at me, did you see? Same damned sense of humor.”

Peter’s getting dazed, Stiles suddenly realizes, with the way he’s rambling and sharing confidences all of a sudden. The man’s so good at keeping his composure that he doesn’t have the usual signs anyone else would have, but he sounds so pettishly wounded by his sister mocking him, in such a private way—Stiles doesn’t think he’d be like that on purpose.

He turns around and checks the pitcher on the washstand, and thankfully, there’s still some water in it. There’s no glass, so when Stiles offers it to Peter, he holds his hand under Peter’s mouth to catch any overflow.

“Anyway, I’ll talk to Lydia when she gets back about making sure that your sister’s spirit was one we rounded up,” he tells Peter, trying to reassure the man.

Instead he just seems to catch Peter’s attention: Peter jerks his head back from the pitcher’s spout, looking sharply up at Stiles. “I’d rather find her and ask her directly,” he says. “ _What_ she was thinking, letting him onto our lands in the first place.”

“You don’t want to ask a spirit that sort of thing. Not when you’re upset,” Stiles says. He pauses, seeing how irritated Peter’s getting, and then sighs and lowers the pitcher. “Look, I know—I know, all right? My mother, she’s already in the Underworld, and I didn’t…I still don’t think I understand why. And I was mad at her for a while, but when you don’t get to talk that often, it’s a waste of time and I just…I can’t be mad if I want to talk to her at all.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.” Peter says, a little more quietly. He settles back and watches as Stiles puts the pitcher on the floor where he can reach it. 

“I guess you are right, it does matter a lot,” Stiles mutters, shaking a blanket out over Peter. He steps back to see whether Peter needs anything else, then turns towards the door. “I pretty much only see her now when I’ve done something—when I didn’t do it right, like with the gate tonight.”

“That was her?” Peter asks. When Stiles turns back, he hesitates, then makes a weak waving gesture with his hand. “Never mind.”

Stiles nods in thanks and then…answers the man anyway. Maybe it’s that he’s so tired, but he’s not really sure what the harm is. Peter’s already seen the Hunt weakened in a way that nobody in generations has, after all. “Yes, that was her. I messed up so she fixed it. I—I’m going to see whether the Hunt’s back. I’ll send Jackson back so if you need something, just call. I’ll tell him he has to at least let me know.”

He moves towards the door, and he has one foot over the threshold when Peter calls out to him. “You did stop him,” Peter says. “And I’m still alive. It’s selfish of me, admittedly, but I prefer this outcome.”

Stiles half-turns, glimpses Peter looking after him, and then goes into the hall. But he’s smiling a little. It’s probably not what he should be doing, but he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' speech about not really dying is taken from Celtic folklore where fairy folk are immortal and so they don't die, they just retreat from what we consider the "living" world.


	9. Chapter 9

When Stiles finds Jackson, Boyd’s with him. Stiles immediately stops and Boyd looks over, then hooks his thumb towards the far end of the stable. “He’s been asking,” is all Boyd says.

“I told him you were busy doctoring,” Jackson grunts. He’s in the middle of hauling saddles into one of the tack rooms—if there are multiple saddles, then not just Stiles’ father is back. “Also, that I didn’t know what else had happened.”

“All right,” Stiles says. “Look, I put Peter in the cook’s bunk, can you go make sure he doesn’t pass out or anything?”

“Wouldn’t that be better for him at this point?” Jackson says. 

But he does leave the saddles to Boyd and start off towards the kitchen, so Stiles doesn’t call him on the whining. Also, well, Stiles can hear his father’s voice now, still faint but coming closer, and already sounding harsh.

“He’s not going to kill you right away,” Boyd says, hefting a saddle. “Going to see that you can survive it first.”

“That’s a contradiction,” Stiles says.

Boyd doesn’t even bother to argue, just walks off into the tack room. Stiles starts to turn after him, annoyed, and then stops himself. No point in putting off the inevitable; he takes a deep breath, sets his shoulders, and goes around the corner to face up to his father.

“…just put them in the crypt, someone will sort them out later but right now I just care that they stay where I put them,” his father’s snapping. “We don’t have the time to waste.”

At Chris, who looks just as startled as Stiles is that he’s the target. He doesn’t dwell on it, just nods and promptly turns around with the chest of bones, but he did stare at Stiles’ father for a second. And then Stiles’ father is staring regretfully at him as he walks off.

“When you’re done,” Stiles’ father starts.

“I know, I’ll have them send extra candles to the library on my way over,” Chris says without looking back or stopping. That’s more like him, one step ahead.

Stiles’ father looks even guiltier, pressing one hand against the side of his head. Then he rakes his hand through his hair, exhaling, as Chris rounds the corner. He keeps looking that way for a few seconds longer before he steps back. And then he sees Stiles.

“Um, Dad,” Stiles gets out, and then his face is being smashed into his father’s shoulder.

“For all that’s bright and shining, son,” his father says, rough and low. He tightens his arm around Stiles’ back, briefly suffocating Stiles, and then loosens up, but only so that he can grab Stiles’ head between his hands and rumple up Stiles’ hair. Then he stops that and leans in so that the bridge of his nose digs into Stiles’ scalp.

“Dad,” Stiles says. He puts his hands up and hugs back. Takes a breath. Then remembers he’s supposed to be explaining. “So—I don’t know if you—”

His father pulls back and looks sharply down at him. “Son, I think the whole countryside saw the Hunt drop out of the sky. What the _hell_ happened?”

“Well, that—that was not me. I mean, it wasn’t some experiment that I or Lydia were doing, it was totally someone else’s spell, and believe me, we didn’t consent to any of it,” Stiles says quickly. He can already see the relief seeping out of the other man’s face, the close way his father’s scrutinizing him instead. “There’s this rogue alpha who’s completely terrible, even other werewolves hate him, he’s called Deucalion Blackwood and he did that as part of some gigantic plan to revenge himself on all the ghosts who are trying to avenge their deaths by his—”

“Stiles,” his father says.

“And I had to breach the gate where the old Nemeton was. I’m really sorry, Dad, but I didn’t have the time to figure out exactly what he was doing, and it seemed like the only way to interrupt him,” Stiles goes on. He steps back a pace so that he has the room to move his arms without smacking them into his father’s chest. “He was _literally_ dragging us down. It was either everybody or it was me, and you always said, when you lead, that means you have to care, so I, well, I care, obviously, so I—”

“Stiles,” his father says again.

“But the gate’s closed up again, and it wasn’t open that long anyway, just long enough to let out enough spirits to chase Deucalion off, and you know, I’m not even _sure_ they were done coming out after him, that’s the kind he is,” Stiles says, waving one arm behind it. Which is probably not the right direction for the gate, but he really just can’t leave it to words alone to express the complete flood that’d been after that werewolf. “And—and, um, Mom, she closed it up again.”

His father had been about to say Stiles’s name a third time, but at that he pauses. He and Stiles both look silently at each other for a moment; as always, when she comes up, a flash of grief crosses his face. He still blames himself for her crossing over so early, in Stiles’ opinion.

“So then we still had a bunch of ghosts out, and I know we can’t just let them stay that way, so Lydia went ahead and took the Hunt after them to see how many we could get back before dawn,” Stiles finally says. He takes a gulping breath, only now realizing how much air he’d used up, and staggers back to grab a stall door for support.

Then he looks up at his father. The man’s listening, and he doesn’t look entirely skeptical. True, most of that is down to how worried he is, so Stiles doesn’t really feel too much better about it, but at least he seems to be thinking about what’s the real problem here.

“Is she…she’s not back yet?” Stiles asks.

His father hesitates and a chill starts to unfurl in Stiles. The other man senses that and sighs, shaking his head. “No, look, we rode back under—they’re on the way home, should be riding in within the half-hour. They’ll be in before dawn. But Stiles, these two werewolves—”

“Peter charged Deucalion,” Stiles immediately says. “He kept him off me long enough so I could open the gate, and that’s why I let—we had to get him back here, Dad, he was such a mess. And Derek’s—well, if Lydia ends up bringing him back, he must have been useful with rounding up the ghosts and—”

“ _Stiles_ ,” his father says sharply. When Stiles falls silent, he’s briefly surprised. He lifts his hand as if to put it on Stiles’ shoulder, then drops it back. “Stiles. I’m not going to throw them out.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. “Oh. All right.”

His father tilts his head, his expression a mixture of exasperation and resignation. “It doesn’t mean I’m not—I _told_ you, and you didn’t listen, _again_ , and—no, let me finish. I told you to wait and I don’t tell you that just to get in your way, or because I don’t think you can handle it, Stiles.”

“I know, Dad.” Stiles starts fidgeting with the edge of his coat, then makes himself look back up at his father. And straighten out his shoulders, and just generally act like somebody who actually leads something, rather than just some kid. “I know, and I wasn’t running off just because I thought it’d be—well, not _only_ because I thought it’d be fun.”

“No, because you thought you could help and thought you’d get it done a lot faster than me.” His father looks down at Stiles till it’s a minor miracle that the guilt burning up Stiles’ cheeks hasn’t set his cravat on fire. Then he sighs and looks off over Stiles’ left shoulder, absently rumpling his hair with one hand. “I’m old and slow and have too much to do, so you’ll just take some off my plate. I know.”

“Dad,” Stiles says, and then stops because. Well. He can’t say his father’s wrong, except for one part, and even he’s not going to pretend that that makes up much of it. “You’re not _old_.”

“Thanks,” his father says dryly, looking back at him. For a second the weariness is pushed down and what Stiles is looking at is a man who’s led the Hunt through winter and summer, years of plenty and years of tribulation. Someone who isn’t surprised by a single thing that comes his way, and who knows none of it is ever actually going to stop him from doing what needs to be done. “Look, we all knew something was up, with the knights going off so often. I wanted you and Lydia to stay put so that Chris and I could figure out whether they were getting lost or whether somebody was luring them off. Because if it was the second one, if you two went out and found the cause of it all but got caught, that’s the whole Hunt with you. If it’s just me or Chris, someone’s still back here to figure it out.”

“I—don’t—really like that reasoning, Dad,” Stiles has to say. But before his father can do more than look frustrated, Stiles puts up his hand. “But I get it. And I just…I wasn’t trying to get into a fight. I just thought…if we took a look at the gate…nobody thought Deucalion would actually be _there_ , or doing anything.”

“But you still should have let me know. If you disappear and I don’t know where to look, I don’t know how to help you, son,” his father says, in a very plain, undramatic tone. Then again, that’s all he needs. He doesn’t need histrionics to get across how disappointed he is. “I’m glad your mother was there, at least.”

Stiles winces. “She…yes. She—she didn’t really say much, by the way. Just to go home.”

For a second the two of them just stand there. His father’s pursing his lips as if to ask more, but then he suddenly jerks his head aside. Sighs instead, running one hand over his face, and then rocks back on his heels as a faint rumbling reaches them: the Hunt finally returning. Since Stiles and Lydia run out the Hunt half the time, he gets to see Stiles’ mother a lot less often than he used to; he never says but Stiles knows it’s hard on him. And now, with what she had to do to save Stiles’ hide, neither of them are going to see much of her for a couple months—maybe not till Samhain. They just won’t be able to risk reopening the doors to the Underworld that soon after such a major breach.

“When this Peter’s up for it, I want us to all sit down and lay out what each of us knows,” his father finally says. “In the meantime, we should all stick close to here, and I don’t want an argument, Stiles. If you think you’ve got something to look into, you can tell me or Chris. Understood?”

“Yes, Dad.” It’s on the tip of Stiles’ tongue to ask whether that means his father will be staying in too, and if not, how Stiles is supposed to tell him. And he doesn’t want to know because he’s trying to be annoying or combative; he just wants to know if it comes up, since his father _is_ often out. 

But he swallows it. He’ll ask his father later, when the man doesn’t look so overstretched. And maybe when he doesn’t have such a hard, cold pit in his chest, because of course _that’s_ when the exasperation in his father’s face suddenly melts into a weary affection. “I know you want to help,” his father says, reaching out to clap Stiles on the shoulder. He pauses, then uses that grip to pull Stiles into another hug. “I know you can, and I know—I know I’m running around a lot and I don’t stop to tell you either, but we have to be smarter about this, Stiles. I’m still not sure what’s going on, but I haven’t seen anything like it since your mother crossed over. I said then I wasn’t ever going to see that happen again. I meant that as a promise to you and her, and I want to keep that.”

“I’m not going to break it for you, Dad,” Stiles mumbles into the man’s shoulder, because if he speaks much louder, he’s a little unsure whether his voice might crack.

His father makes a gruff noise, squeezes Stiles one last time, and then steps back and pivots just as the first of the Hunt riders clatters into the stable.

The rest quickly follow. They all look exhausted, the knights barely holding themselves together—literally—while some of the horses plop down where they stop and have to be prodded to get up so that they can be untacked. As for the werewolves and Lydia…

“What did you do, stuff him with your whole herb garden?” Erica says, snuffling the air as she stumbles up to Stiles. Then one of the knights moves and lets her see Stiles’ dad there, and she shifts hurriedly into an embarrassed wolf who slinks around Stiles and makes a run for the kitchen door.

Lydia comes up too quickly after her for Stiles to even kick straw in Erica’s direction. She has Derek sitting behind her again, though he’s sloping off the horse before it even fully stops. “So you’re not scared of—” Stiles starts.

As soon as his feet are on the ground, Derek scoots back from the horse, running into a haybale as he does, even though it’s obviously too tired to bother trying to kick anyone. It can barely hold its head off its knees.

“John,” Lydia starts, just on the end of a deep breath. Her shoulders are back and she’s holding herself very erect, in a way that would get her bounced right out of the saddle if her mount was going at anything but the slowest of walks. Also, she never calls Stiles’ dad by his first name, unless she’s about to apologize for something. Which, it being Lydia, happens about as often as a blue moon coincides with the solstice.

“I already talked to Stiles. Just rest up, we’ll all go over it in the morning,” Stiles’ father says. Then he winces. “I mean—when you’ve slept some. Go inside, get something to eat. Chris and I will be walking the borders. When we’re done, we’ll come in and talk.”

Lydia inhales sharply, looking as if she might object, and Stiles’ father’s expression stiffens. He starts to go on, then just stops himself and turns away, making a cutting motion with his hand as he does. He’s not looking so he doesn’t see the flash of hurt and worry go over her face; still, he knows Lydia pretty well now, and of course Stiles knows his father, so he knows that tiny pause before the man walks off means his father sensed that.

He also knows Lydia, so he hops over and has his hands up to help her off the horse before his father takes that next step away. Which his father’s always going to do, and neither he nor Lydia can do anything about it, and it’s just been a very, very long night. They need to stop for a second and think.

She knows that too, but she’s still a bit curt as she tosses the reins over a nearby peg and then jerks her leg over the top of her horse. She nearly _doesn’t_ take Stiles’ hands, twisting as if she’s going to dodge them, but at the last minute she sighs and grabs them—he was going for her waist, but settles for that and together they get her down from the horse.

“I think he’s more worried about what happened than mad,” Stiles offers, watching Lydia brush at her skirts more than she needs to.

The corner of her mouth twists. “We found nearly all of them. I’d say only twenty or so escaped, and given how single-minded they seemed to be, they aren’t likely to be terrorizing the general population.”

Stiles nods. “I didn’t get around to telling him everything, but I…I told him Mom shut the gate, and about Peter.”

Derek’s still lurking nearby and he pricks up then, but they both mostly ignore him. He seems relieved about that, and just sidles around the bale that’d almost tripped him and settles down near another one as Lydia’s horse is led away. Doesn’t sit on it, just crouches out of the way.

Lydia keeps plucking at her skirts. Pine needles and the odd twig shake out of them as she does, far too many of them: even after the ritual was interrupted, it looks as if they were very low in the sky. “But we’ve lost him,” she mutters, and he knows she’s referring to Deucalion. “I don’t—I don’t _understand_ what happened. He has a tail of ghosts after him longer than any comet, something even a child with a dowsing rod could follow, so how we _lost_ him—”

“I think Dad knew something serious was up, that the knights wandering off wasn’t just a nuisance,” Stiles says. “He was saying he’d been going out to make sure if anything happened, it’d be to him and not the Hunt and you know what it means when he starts talking like that.”

Her fan accidentally unhooks from her girdle and he stoops to catch it. But when he tries to hand it back to her, the hem of her dress slaps into his shins. She’d reached down too. 

He flinches back and she looks up and then her braid unravels from the tight bun she’d had it wound into, shedding hairpins. One skips down Lydia’s front and she snatches at it, then curses roundly as it slips through her fingers. “And _how_ some rogue werewolf managed to get his hands on an extant copy of the Sibylline Books in the first place,” she snaps, yanking her skirts out of the way and bending down after the pins. “Tell me that, when you know just as well as I do that how many copies there are and who’s guarding them and good God, if your uncle was _dead_ , we would obviously _not_ be standing around bickering!”

That’s to Derek, who starts from Lydia’s abrupt twist—she’s still picking up hairpins, and having to crane herself to look past her own legs at him, not that that’d decrease the effect of her glare in the least. He blinks twice, then gives her a stiff shrug. His eyes flick up to Stiles.

“You said not to get out of your sight again,” he says. Takes a step towards the kitchen, then stops and glances at Lydia. His clothes are more intact than Stiles would’ve expected, but they’re liberally streaked with dirt, so even if he hadn’t full-shifted, he certainly was on the ground at some point. “Look, I don’t want to make anything worse. Just say where to wait and I’ll wait.”

Also a little less curt than before, Stiles notes with surprise. Derek sounds almost concerned about her, and not just trying to avoid her temper.

Lydia, however, is not in the mood for it. Stiles can tell from how she sets her shoulders back, and tired as he is, with all the other things on his mind that he has, even he realizes that that’s not fair. So he flips Lydia’s fan around in his hand to put it out of her reach, then hastily tucks it behind his back as he scans the stables for something…or someone, and Scott’s there, as always.

“Peter’s resting up off the kitchens, in the cook’s bunk,” Stiles says, half to Derek, and half to Scott, who he’s signaling to come over with a chin-jerk. “Scott can take you over if you don’t remember where that is or if that didn’t come up on the tour…I sent Jackson that way too, if Peter needed anything.”

“Jackson?” Derek says, immediately standing up. He’s dubious, with a liberal dose of black humor to it, but also, right before any of that came into his face, there had been a flash of irritation. Almost like he was going to take offense at Stiles intervening between him and Lydia. “Seriously? The one who’s always going on about how his clothes are better than everybody else’s? Did you want him back alive?”

And now Stiles is annoyed, because one, he’s saving the man from a verbal mauling, and two, he really, really has other things he could be doing right now and three, Jackson is still a part of his household, while Derek’s not. “Listen, the last thing—”

“I’ll take him. I’ll show him,” Scott breaks in, grabbing Derek by the arm. Derek isn’t exactly pleased with that either, but the smile Scott turns on him, while polite, would smash Damascus steel before it wavered. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll make sure they’re settled in and have whatever they need. Just—I’ll come by later?”

To check on them, as if he hasn’t done enough running around for the night. Not that telling him he can just go to bed is going to stop him, Stiles knows, so he’s about to tell Scott that’s fine when Lydia answers instead. “Yes, we’ll still be up,” she sighs.

At the same time, her hand finds its way to Stiles’ arm, and when he looks over, she merely gives him a look before leaning into him. It’s as if her temper’s a pot of boiling water that’s been yanked off the flame, and suddenly the masses of roiling bubbles have vanished, leaving behind a still surface.

Scott gives her a concerned look as he hustles off a still-reluctant Derek, and once those two are out of earshot, so does Stiles. “I’m—I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “Peter took longer than I thought to patch up, and—”

“Oh, you know you couldn’t have come back to help, even if there’d been time,” Lydia says, less sharply than she usually would. Her head grazes his shoulder twice, then settles firmly on it as he slips his arm around her waist. “You went to earth, Stiles. Frankly, I’m stunned that you’re not bedridden right next to Peter.”

“I’m fine,” Stiles says.

She twists and looks at him. She’s angry again, all of a sudden, and when her hand comes up he braces himself—but it slows, just as it touches his cheek, and then it moves back to wrap around his head as she presses her face into his chest. Lydia inhales deep and hard, and then again, more gently, as he lifts his hand, dithers stupidly about what to do about it, and finally decides on petting her hair.

“You didn’t see what you looked like,” Lydia mutters against him. She takes another breath, then pushes back and straightens up. “Well, that’s never happening again. Come on, we can’t be dawdling here. We’ve work to do.”

“I know,” Stiles says. He does dawdle long enough to smile at her.

Which annoys her, but he sees the warmth behind it. Right before she swirls her skirts, flinging dirt onto him, as she stalks into the house. And worn out as he is, he’s still grinning as he hurries after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having Boyd around is not an anachronism. Enlightenment-era Europe (including Britain, where this is set) did have a small population of free Africans and African-descent individuals.


	10. Chapter 10

Stiles means to start in the library once he’s washed and eaten, but he’s not about to go there without Lydia, and Lydia needs longer to clean up than he does, so…he flops onto her bed to wait for her, closes his eyes for a few seconds and ends up opening them about mid-afternoon. His one consolation is that this time, she’s curled up right next him and deeply asleep. One of her hands is still tangled in her half-unraveled braid, and her other hand is clutched in the blanket she’s pulled over both of them.

She looks older than she should, with harsh lines running from the base of her nose to the corners of her mouth, and a deep groove between her pinched brows. And even with the softening effect of the warm afternoon sun, there’s a greyish cast to her complexion that Stiles doesn’t like.

He pushes himself up on his elbow for a better look, in case it’s just his angle, and suddenly feels as if he’s hauling a load of cast iron on his back. His arm muscles are wobbling, and when he finally lets himself drop back against the bed, they ache as if someone’s inserted tiny slivers of red-hot metal into them. Granted, he’s never been the burly type—you can be Hunt leader without needing to literally toss mountains out of the way; the earlier leaders pretty much did all of that that the country needs, anyway—but he’s still not that weak. Or he shouldn’t be, at least.

Stiles lies still and catches his breath. Lydia stirs next to him and he twists his head over, then tucks the blanket back up around her when he notices how his struggling has shaken it down. She seems to settle, but then a low, uneasy sound escapes from her. Now her lips are moving, and when Stiles leans in close, he can just make out a whispered susurration that sends chilly tingles throughout his body. She’s dreaming with the other banshees.

For a second he debates waking her, in case it’s not a pleasant dream, but she’s not clenching her jaw or thrashing around, and if whatever the others are saying turns out to be relevant, she’s going to be angry at him for interrupting. Banshee communication is so unpredictable, even for them: Lydia once likened it to the old maxim about never stepping into the same running stream twice.

So in the end, he leaves her be. Just wriggles himself out from under the blankets and over to the side of the bed, where he gets himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand. Somebody’s left him a hunk of bread, wrapped up in a cloth, but it’s already gone stale. Must have been leftovers from the day before—everyone was still too busy to start a fresh batch, so that’s all that’d be around for Scott to grab, Stiles thinks.

He tosses the bread from hand to hand, then takes it with him as he slips off the bed, careful not to let it bounce Lydia awake. After drinking the water, he feels steadier, but he’s still sorer than he should be, with how long he’s slept. It looks like the others were right, and whatever Deucalion did affected him on a much deeper level than just diverting the Hunt for a few minutes.

Stiles makes a face at himself, then scrubs his hand over it. He needs to be honest, and not play the suffering hero when really, he’s not. He’s somebody with a very important spectral manifestation to protect and pretending he’s unaffected is just going to slow up figuring out _what_ Deucalion did to them.

“Wash, food, library, stuff him through the nearest gate,” Stiles mutters to himself, walking into the adjoining boudoir.

Derek looks up from a serving tray filled with food as if he’s a deer into whose eyes somebody’s just flashed lantern-light. He freezes in the middle of applying jam to what looks like Lydia’s favorite French pastries. And the jam actually appears to be the rosehip one she prefers when recovering from a bad night.

They stare at each other for a few seconds. Frankly, Stiles is not entirely positive that he shouldn’t add hallucinations to the list of Deucalion-induced symptoms, seeing as Derek also is in just his shirtsleeves, with an open collar and said sleeves rolled up past his elbows to show streaks of flour and possibly butter over his arms and the visible vee of his chest. There’s more flour in his hair.

“Biscuits are there,” Derek finally says. He shifts on his feet, watching Stiles warily, then jerks his chin at the far side of the tray.

Stiles goes up to see, because what else is he going to do, and yes, there are biscuits. Not the biscuits the kitchen makes—these are shaped differently, and when he bites into one, they have the slight tang of buttermilk rather than the smooth richness of cream. But they’re good.

“Mmm,” Stiles says appreciatively, and looks up just in time to find Derek picking up an actual _piping bag_.

He stares. Derek stares back, silently asking whether Stiles is going to do anything, and when Stiles doesn’t, proceeds to hold the bag in the proper way, with the rounded end tucked against his palm, and use it to fill up the jam-spread pastries with creamy rosettes. They’re even and identically-sized.

When he’s done, Derek picks up the other half of each pastry and layers it on the frosting to make sandwiches. Then he wipes his hand off on a rag, secretes that out of sight, and starts to walk away.

“Hey!” Stiles says. And then he smacks his hand to his mouth to catch all the crumbs tumbling out, because yes, this is all very odd but that’s no reason to not finish off the biscuit since it is delicious and he is starving.

“What?” Derek says. He stops, but obviously didn’t want to. “Look, Peter’s busy with your father, and they said we can’t go out without somebody with us and everybody else is in the crypts.”

“The crypts?” Stiles repeats, frowning. At this hour, the knights should be settled in and resting. “Also, Peter’s doing what with my father? Where are they?”

“Library.” Then Derek shrugs. “Last I checked. It’s been a while. And before you say, there’s no way Peter’s doing anything terrible. He still can’t walk on his own, and didn’t even make a fuss about me helping him over.”

Stiles gives his mouth a hasty wipe with his hand and then goes around the platter to Derek’s side. The other man immediately shuffles back and Stiles pauses. “Well, I’m not going to do anything terrible to _you_ ,” he says after a moment. “If Dad wants to talk to Peter, then Dad wants to talk to him, and I still don’t see how this results in you knowing Lydia likes these.”

“Can’t blame me for not being able to tell,” Derek mutters, not looking at Stiles. “ _We_ warned you about him and we’re the ones locked up.”

“Because we’re trying to find him and kill him now!” Stiles snaps. He forgets for a second that it’s past the full moon and he’s not at his peak, and Derek’s a werewolf who seems to have come out the best of all of them from the past night, and stalks forward to jab his finger at the other man. “You know, you’ve been unpleasant this entire time when really, we didn’t _have_ to just—just let you go after trying to rob us. Or let Peter buy us dinner. _Or_ , again, let it go when you broke in here, or look into things for you or take you along on the Hunt so all of us almost got yanked out of the sky! We didn’t have to do _any_ of that.”

Derek doesn’t move forward or backward, but just stands there. Occasionally his eyes flick down to where Stiles’ finger is poking at him, but mostly he stares back at Stiles, lips pressed tightly together. He doesn’t exactly look like he’s willing to take the blame, but when Stiles runs out of things to say, he…keeps standing there. Doesn’t say anything to defend himself.

“Anyway,” Stiles mutters, dropping back to lean against the table with the food. His breath’s shorter than he likes, and he thinks that if nothing else, they’ve got to figure out what Deucalion’s doing just because he _cannot_ pass out every time he rants. He’d be fainting multiple times a day. “It’s guaranteed that he’s not going to get away, with what he did. So you should be happy now.”

The last thing that Derek looks is happy, but again, he doesn’t talk. He does tilt his head and frown at Stiles, and makes a slight movement with one hand that Stiles doesn’t understand till, giving up, he sits down and Derek relaxes and then he realizes Derek had been about to reach out and steady him.

“Is that part of it?” Derek asks. When Stiles gives him a questioning look, he gestures awkwardly at the bedroom door. “Why you two are so drained?”

“Lydia’s just sleeping, she was running the Hunt on her own for most of the night,” Stiles says under his breath.

“I know. I was with her,” Derek says, his tone a touch sarcastic. He almost gets away with it because of how little his face moves, but then he sighs and goes to the platter and picks up a biscuit, which he tosses to Stiles. “You look almost as bad. Maybe you should go back to sleep. Your father’s already talking to Peter.”

“I know, you said that, and while I am fully aware of how many ways that could go catastrophically wrong—none of which involve Peter getting the better of Dad, by the way, I still haven’t forgotten that you brought up _food_ ,” Stiles says. He did catch the biscuit, and his stomach definitely still could use some more filling, but he makes himself wait on that so he can eye Derek. “Also, there’s no way you came in through the hall with it. The alarm runes on the door _have_ woken the dead. Literally. Enough times that Dad always reminds us to shut them off when we’re entertaining on Samhain.”

Derek looks torn between being deeply confused and being defensive. In the end, he settles for defensive: hunched shoulders, grimacing expression, lurking near the cabinet hiding the secret passage till Stiles caves and rolls his eyes and gives the scone that works the door a meaningful look. At that point, Derek just gets exasperated.

“Because when I said everybody else is in the crypts, I mean everybody,” Derek says. “Everybody. Honestly, I could’ve probably sneaked out, but I’m staying because we want Blackwood too. Hell, we’ll kill him _for_ you if that’s less risky. All we asked was help with finding him.”

Stiles straightens up, opening his mouth, and…then closes it and slumps back. Because actually, Derek’s right about that, and Stiles is just—all right. He’s shaken up. And worried. And just lashing out without a good reason and no wonder his father’s disappointed in him, he thinks, rubbing at his face. If this is how he handles a real, true, once-in-a-lifetime emergency, he should stay in.

“I’m still not sure how you work here, but you eat, so it doesn’t seem like a great idea to just go around chewing on nothing but your nails,” Derek adds after a moment. He’s both less certain of himself and more relaxed, a contradiction that doesn’t resolve until he gives the platter kind of an embarrassed, yet slightly proud look. “Peter’s going too fast for me to keep up with the books, too, so I figured cooking was something to do till one of you got up and explained what’s going on.”

“So you cook?” Stiles says, blinking. “I mean, you bake?”

“We don’t stay at taverns like that all the time. Peter would like to, but it’s not even about the money. Most of them just can’t cook,” Derek says dryly. He shrugs. “And you don’t want to see Peter when he has to eat bad food. It’s worse than someone spoiling his clothes.”

Stiles looks at him, then at the biscuit. Then he pinches off a piece of that and brings it up to his mouth. Derek’s watching his hand move.

He pops it in, chews, and swallows. “It is tasty,” he says, and a smirk flicks over Derek’s face so quickly that if he hadn’t been waiting for it, he would have missed it. “So how long did it take for Lydia to track you down?”

“I didn’t run,” Derek says sharply, as if he’s been waiting for that question. He’s tensed up again, weight poised so he can dart anywhere he needs to before Stiles can even get to his feet. “She was dropping down, and when her horse twisted I lost my balance and fell off, and you all said we needed to stay in the middle to stay safe. So that’s what I did. When she caught up, I got back on, and I helped round up all your knights.”

“I wasn’t actually asking because I thought—I was trying to insult you, or anything like that,” Stiles says, more than a little taken aback by the vehemence of the man’s reaction. Whatever the Hales’ plans had been, at this point it’s clear they never involved letting Deucalion get the better of the Hunt, and that’s what’s most important to Stiles. “I just was wondering, if you—I was going to ask if it didn’t take long, and you saw most of what she was doing, how hard it was. You know, whether it was—if anything came up.”

Derek rocks back on his feet, obviously reconsidering the situation. When he answers, his tone is still tight, but it’s softer. “Honestly, I didn’t understand much of what was happening. Mostly I just—she had me hold the reins a few times, so she could do something with the standard. It looked like she knew what she was doing.”

“She always does,” Stiles says, grinning to himself. He works out a crick in his neck at the same time and his and Derek’s eyes happen to cross, and the other man looks just as admiring of whatever Lydia had done. Genuinely so.

Which is proven by how Derek’s face immediately shutters and he starts to shift towards that passage door again, while keeping his front angled towards Stiles. It’s as if he thinks Stiles is going to…get upset, or challenge him, or something along those lines, if Stiles is reading the werewolf posturing correctly.

“So did you just pick these out of some recipe book of food Peter will accept?” Stiles asks. “Because they are her fav—”

The door swings open and they both jump, with Stiles yelping too as he juggles the biscuit and narrowly avoids dropping it on the floor. Lydia stands in the doorway, looking highly unimpressed.

“Someone disabled my _clock_ ,” she hisses.

Stiles shakes his head. “I fell asleep before you and just woke up,” he says.

“I just got here,” Derek says. He holds his hands up, then points at the passage door. “And I was going. I just was bringing up the food.”

“We didn’t even get to who showed you the passage,” Stiles suddenly remembers. “If everybody’s down keeping the knights in place, then—”

“There’s a map in the library,” Derek says. They both look at him and he snorts at them. “I can read. And I’m not Peter with magic, but I can recognize some runes. Anyway, the food’s there, I’m going back to the library before somebody else yells at me.”

Arms crossed over her chest, Lydia frowns at Stiles, who shrugs to let her know he’s tried about all the ways he can think of right now, and if she’s got anything else, feel free. She wrinkles her nose, calling him lazy, and drifts over to the platter.

Derek had been circling wide of her so he could escape out into the bedroom, and then presumably the hall door, but he slows down as she unfolds one arm and reaches for a pastry. Stiles stretches up in his seat, trying to make out the man’s expression, and his foot slips across the carpet and kicks the table leg. He winces, Derek’s head jerks up, and then he and Derek have another one of those uncomfortable looks where he’s not sure if Derek resents him or wishes they could exchange notes on a common interest.

“Proper ratio, frosting’s not overly plentiful,” Lydia comments, and Derek’s eyes slide to her instead. 

He lingers to watch her nibble into the end of the pastry and make an approving noise. Then, pointedly avoiding Stiles’ gaze, he stalks out of the boudoir at a pace that’d mean Stiles would have to throw something at him, at minimum, to make him stop.

“You won him over?” Stiles says.

Lydia lowers the pastry. Stiles raises his brows, and then laughs as she gives him an exasperated look. “I didn’t have the time to be gracious and winsome,” she says tartly. “I told him what I needed him to do, and thankfully, he did it. More like I found out whether or not he can take an order.”

“And so he can, can he?” Stiles says, muffling another laugh into his biscuit. He tries not to choke as, still miffed, Lydia bangs a mug down beside his elbow and then pours coffee into it. But the humor doesn’t last for long; it’s already well on its way to the grace by the time she sits down with her own cup and the pastry. “Peter’s talking to Dad in the library, according to Derek. We should probably head down there next.”

“He did seem in unusually good spirits, for a man with that many stitches holding him together,” Lydia says. She sips her coffee. “I looked in on him before I came back to try and wake you. He had quite a few compliments on your doctoring.”

Stiles makes a face to cover how flattered he is, which is both completely irrelevant right now and probably also at least half Peter working at being charming. “Lydia.”

She stops teasing. “Blackwood’s dead, one way or the other. It’s just a matter of who has the honor of handing him over to the Underworld.”

“I don’t think Dad’s going to argue about that. I just think he’s going to argue about who should go,” Stiles says. He finishes off the second biscuit and then gulps his coffee. A cleared throat from her makes him slow it to a fast slurp, but still, they can’t just sit here. “He’s going to say he and Chris should go do it, in case Deucalion has more tricks up his sleeve. I mean, he literally already said that to me.”

“Well, then we won’t have to worry about having Allison on board with our alternative plan, and where she goes, Scott goes.” Lydia dabs a napkin over her mouth, then settles back with cup and saucer in hand. “We have till the next full moon, I’m guessing. Just as well, considering your condition.”

“What about yours?” Stiles asks, his pride a little nettled. Then that subsides and he just sighs at the look she gives him. “I mean, honestly, Lydia, if you’re sleeping that long too—and it wasn’t just that you had to run the Hunt yourself and chase down all those ghosts. You still look—”

She twists away and looks moodily at the wall. “I know.”

To be truthful, Stiles had been hoping she’d argue with him, and insist she hadn’t been nearly as badly affected. But she’s not, and that means it was even worse than it looks, and he just feels his stomach knotting up more and more. Usually no matter how much of a mess it is, one of them can still stand back and take care of it.

“You didn’t hear it,” Lydia says suddenly.

Stiles blinks. “What?”

“Hear it,” she repeats, looking back at him. “When he was chanting. It wasn’t only him—there was a voice coming from the gate. Not a ghost and not your mother and not one of the other guardians—I don’t know what it was, and none of the other banshees are sure either.”

“No, I didn’t,” is all Stiles can say. He fidgets with his empty coffee cup, then sets it aside. Pulls his chair around so that they’re facing each other, then leans forward on his knees and looks up at her. “Lydia.”

“It was calling us down,” she finally says. At first she’s not looking at him, but is still staring at the wall. Then, after a deep, slightly shaky breath, she does look at him. Smiles a little as he takes her hand in both of his; her fingers are trembling before they snap around his fingers, gripping tight. “Telling us our time is past, that we should come home and rest. That’s what it was saying.”

“Well, that’s not true. You know that’s not true,” Stiles says instantly, and as firmly as he can. “It’s not. It’s lying, whatever that was. I mean, we aren’t even _married_ yet, and you said—”

For some reason, Lydia breaks out into giggles then. Stiles has no idea why, since he wasn’t even trying to be funny, but she does. Helpless little ones, like the girl she usually doesn’t let herself be in front of other people, till she has to reach over and put her saucer and cup back on the table before she drops them.

“You said if you were going to commit to an eternity of chasing down every filthy little spirit the gates spit out into terrible weather, instead of sticking around a nice, dry, well-furnished castle to scream once a decade, you damn well wanted a commitment back,” Stiles reminds her. He’s a little annoyed, as well as confused. She thinks he jokes too much, and then when he does try to be serious, she laughs at him. “I mean, I was going to ask anyway but—”

“I was _not_ about to let you carry out that nonsense with the will o’ the wisp dancing,” Lydia snorts. Her giggling’s faded, but she’s still smiling, as she lifts her hand and touches the side of his head. “They leave swamp stink everywhere, and Scott _cannot_ hide a surprise party to save his life.”

The side of Stiles’ mouth pulls up into a smile, against his lingering annoyance. “True.”

“I did say that,” she says after a moment, idly circling his ear with her fingertip. He shivers a little and her smile turns intimate, conspiratorial, as she draws her fingers down under his chin. “And mean it. So we’ll keep your father from sacrificing himself, sacrifice Blackwood instead, and hand the Hales back their alpha’s claws.”

“And then we’ll get married,” Stiles says. “That’s a plan if I ever heard one. I think we’re set.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's a fandom stereotype (and certainly one that I've leaned on before) that Derek can't cook. But sometimes you want to try something new, and also, baking actually seems like an activity that somebody broody would be into. Lots of sitting around waiting for stuff to rise.
> 
> Derek's assembling napoleons, a form of which existed decades before their namesake was born.


	11. Chapter 11

All right, it’s not quite that simple. First they have to figure out exactly which ritual Deucalion was trying to carry out, no more guessing or assuming. That takes time with the books, but one of the few upsides of the wrecked Hunt was that it gave them an awful lot more clues to help them narrow things down. Also, Peter was apparently convincing enough with Stiles’ father that he allows Peter and Derek to directly read excerpts from the Sibylline Books.

They’re still not permitted to see the Books themselves, so once a likely section is found in the index, somebody goes into the innermost archives and copies out the section and brings it back to the reading room for examination. Which is slow. “But frankly, you’re not in any shape to visit the archives anyway,” Stiles’ father tells Peter a few days later, after he politely suggests the process is inefficient.

“It never would have occurred to me that simply perusing a book could be so taxing on the body,” Peter says dryly. Though in the next second, he musters up a courteous smile and nod. “But I trust your expertise in the area. Derek and I are merely here to assist where we can. It’s the least we can do in return for your hospitality.”

Stiles’ father returns the nod, looking stiff, and then excuses himself a few minutes later when someone knocks on the door. It’s Chris, Stiles can tell by how he cracks the door open so that nobody inside the library can see him, so he immediately slips out of his seat and trails after his father, only to have to whirl around and pretend he’s found something critical in a shelf of heraldry books when the other man pivots.

“That’s the wrong book, Stiles, there can’t possibly be anything relevant in that,” his father snorts. He pauses, one hand holding the door open, and then sighs and pushes it wider and looks at Chris. “Well?”

“Still haven’t picked up much of anything after he hit the road,” Chris says. He’s got Boyd and Erica with him, and they all…smell. A little.

All right, more than a little. Across the room, Scott suddenly starts coughing as if something went down the wrong pipe, while Jackson makes a rude noise and whips out a handkerchief—probably scented—that he proceeds to wad up against his nose. In the hall, Boyd rolls his eyes, then puts his arm out and grabs Erica just as she starts to storm through the door, muttering something about if they want out of scribe duty so badly.

“He had decoys ready,” Chris goes on, as if none of that fuss is going on. “Tracked the scent down to behind a tavern, but that just ended in us finding his coat dumped in the refuse pile. I don’t think he was wearing it, I think he paid somebody to take that there, so now we’ve got to backtrack and start all over again.”

“Any luck canvassing the neighborhood?” Stiles’ father asks, sounding a little odd. Then he waves his hand, cutting Chris off. “Look, go wash up first, we’ll talk it over after that.”

Boyd and Erica immediately scamper off, but Chris lingers. “Alpha Cornwell’s going to be along, if he’s not already at the gate,” he mutters, his eyes flicking at the door. “Had some questions that he wasn’t satisfied with me answering.”

Stiles’ father doesn’t like that, Stiles can tell just from the way the slope of his back changes. “Right,” he says, his head moving slightly as if he’s glancing at the same spot on the door as Chris. “I’ll go down, you can meet me th—no, come back to the library. Shouldn’t be long with him, and we should talk about anything you’ve found out about Deucalion together.”

Chris nods and backs up so that Stiles’ father can go out into the hall. As he shuts the door, Stiles’ father looks back at Stiles, who sighs and puts his heraldry book back and steps away from the shelf. His father makes a face at him and he pointedly marches back up to the reading tables.

“You’re not telling people that _we’re_ here, are you?” Derek asks, soon as Stiles turns around.

“Why not?” Lydia counter-asks, obviously not liking his tone.

Derek looks a little taken aback, shifting his shoulders against his chair, but before he can come up with anything, Peter answers for both of them. “We’re seen as harbingers of doom, by some packs,” he says, his eyes still on the index he’s leafing through, tone and posture casual. “Due to all the misfortune our pack has gone through. Of course it’s not as if we’ve ever tried to impose on other packs, even though more than a few of them both owed Talia favors and could have done more the last time Blackwood came calling, but you can’t help silly superstitions.”

“We had asked a couple of them what they knew about your family,” Scott pipes up, looking more than a little guilty. “But that was before the last Hunt, and…I don’t know if your father was still asking?”

He’s speaking to Allison, who doesn’t look as if she regrets anything, but she does look concerned. “He’d know whether or not he should,” she says, but the words are slow to come from her. “No one’s interested in starting any more feuds. We’re just helping to find and stop Blackwood.”

“Would they even try feuding with you?” Derek asks, looking from Lydia to Stiles. “Could they?”

“No,” Stiles says, with Lydia echoing him a second later. He drops back into his seat next to Peter and reaches for the excerpts he’d been reading, then stops. “Well, not if they want to live through the next full moon.”

“Or if they want a peaceful afterlife,” Lydia adds, frowning at something in her book. “And if the fear is that you may be targeted after this is all settled, we’ll see to it that that doesn’t happen.”

“We would very much appreciate that,” Peter says, with enough sincerity that Lydia looks up. 

He smiles at her, more restrained than he does when he’s trying to flirt, and she blinks hard in surprise. And Stiles, who’s been paying more attention to her expression than to the papers he’s got halfway in his hand, accidentally jitters his hand and knocks some of them off the table.

Scott swivels around in his chair and stoops for them, but is beaten by Derek, who has them scooped up and back on the table. All except one sheet, which caught a draft and spun too erratically for even werewolf reflexes to predict. 

Derek does get that one too, it just takes him another try. He pulls it down and holds it out to Stiles, then…doesn’t let go. Stiles tugs at it, then looks up to see what’s the matter and finds Derek staring intently at the paper.

“This says if you want to replace the Hunter, you need to kill the current one,” Derek suddenly says.

“But he’s just trying to get out of being haunted, I thought,” Allison says, as the rest of them turn to see what’s the matter. “Why would he want to lead the Hunt? That’s a lot of responsibility, and I thought he doesn’t want that.”

“He wants power.” Peter puts down his book and moves his hand as if to reach for the paper. Then he withdraws his arm, and instead he grips the side of his chair and slides it over a few inches so that he’s right up against Stiles’ side. He’s still injured enough that that much effort makes him pant and put one hand up against the bandages that are bulking out the side of his shirt. “Whether that comes with strings attached likely doesn’t matter to him, if the power is great enough.”

Derek still isn’t letting go, so Stiles works with it and just pulls the paper to where he can also read it; Derek doesn’t resist that, but just moves around to the other side of Stiles’ chair so he can keep reading. Lydia also gets up, going to the back of Stiles so she can lean over his head.

“On the other hand, Allison has a point. His motivation’s still to free himself, and becoming the leader of the Hunt means he’ll still see his ghosts regularly,” Lydia points out. “Besides, this ritual doesn’t involve bleeding out a black goat.”

“That might’ve just been to get the Hunt’s attention, by drawing over enough ghosts,” Stiles says, still reading through the excerpt. 

It’s in Isaac’s handwriting and he’s got some of the tiniest, most cramped script in the household. Jackson has the most readable hand, but he also, despite all of his groaning, has one of the best noses, so he’s been splitting his time between the research and going out with Chris to try and find where Deucalion’s been hiding. Plus it’s in a really archaic form of Greek, so—

Stiles looks up at Derek. “You can read this?”

“I wasn’t going to do all the damn translating in the family,” Peter snorts. “Even if teaching proved almost as painful.”

Derek flicks him an annoyed look, then shrugs an affirmative at Stiles. And then looks startled when Stiles grins at him. He falls back and looks away, as if he wasn’t really that interested in Stiles’ opinion, which is such terrible acting that even Scott looks puzzled by it.

“For the benefit of those who can’t read it,” Lydia says, her tone pointedly dragging them back to the actual important research going on. “This discusses how luring the Hunt leader to the ground makes him susceptible to mortal injury, and how if you slay the leader, then you yourself can take on the mantle.”

“Really?” Scott says. Then he makes a hasty gesture to show that he’s not disputing her translation. “I’m just surprised that—that somebody actually wrote this down somewhere. Wouldn’t we want to make sure nobody ever knew that?”

“We don’t have power over all the books in the world,” Stiles says, but nicely, since as usual, Scott’s just trying to think of how to protect people. “Anyway, I think it’s known that which family leads the Hunt has switched—it’s not as if my family’s done it forever and ever. If you just studied the Hunt a little, you’d figure that out.”

Lydia kicks Stiles’ chair, then frowns at him when he glances up at him. Her head tilts slightly in Peter’s direction as she speaks. “But those were voluntary transfers. By force is new. And at any rate, we still haven’t answered the question of why Deucalion would opt for this ritual, when it doesn’t get what he wants.”

“Unless it does,” Peter says. He’s drawing out his words, sounding distracted, and in the next moment he shifts away from Stiles and back to the table, rummaging through the papers on it with his good hand. “Blackwood’s pet cause is this idea that the strong should not just destroy the weak, but feed on them—”

“So he’s a _vampire_ now?” Allison interrupts.

Peter gives her a dismissive look. “Let’s not unnecessarily box ourselves in with dogmatic classifications, shall we? After all, historically that’s only led your family into disastrously underestimating your enemy, _if_ you’ve studied any of that.”

Allison’s mouth moves soundlessly for a second. Then her eyes harden and she pushes up from her seat. Scott grabs her by the elbow, Peter ignores her and continues to leaf through the papers, and…it’s Lydia’s look that makes Allison hesitate.

“I meant in the general sense that he kills others to make himself stronger,” Peter says, pulling out one sheet. He holds it before him, nods, and then passes it to Stiles. “He killed his betas because he believed they were holding them back, but also because that way, he could literally grow stronger by stealing their power. The ghosts haunting him would be more of the same to him, so why shouldn’t he treat them as the same?”

Stiles angles the sheet so that Lydia can read it too. It details out a ritual for quieting the restless dead, which they’d considered earlier but rejected since it doesn’t actually banish the spirits, it just temporarily drains them. If a spirit is angry enough, it’ll have the will to rebuild itself, and any spirit that can do that will come back twice as strong, which is a side-effect that they didn’t think Deucalion would miss.

“So you’re proposing that his plan is to take over the Hunt so that he can use his position to order the ghosts to stop coming after him?” Lydia says. She folds her arms over her chest and leans against Stiles’ chair, looking skeptically down at Peter. “Then I think both you and he, if you’re correct, fundamentally misunderstand the Hunt’s role.”

“Oh, I don’t think I do,” Peter says. Politely, but insistently. “What’s the need to order when you can simply ignore? He’ll take servants but that hardly means he’ll care for them, or, for that matter, pay them any attention at all if he’s not forced to.”

“This spell’s intended to be done by a mortal,” Stiles says, suddenly seeing what Peter’s getting at. “If you or I did it…every spirit we send to the Underworld reinforces what the Hunt is, Lydia. That’s our job, and that’s better for the spirits, too, so they can finally rest. But if you ignored that, and just—just kept the spirits for yourself, instead of sending them on—”

She sees too, he can tell by the sharp way she sucks her breath, and then how quiet she is after that. “But that won’t last,” she finally says. “There are too many dead. If they’re not pushed to the Underworld, and just stay here…they can’t be held. Not forever.”

Neither of them want to follow that thought through to the logical conclusion. But they have to. As the leaders, this is the kind of thing that they need to protect again, so they can’t afford to stick their heads in the sand.

“Would he survive that?” Derek suddenly asks. “When—when whatever he’s done to the ghosts finally backfires on him?”

“No,” Stiles says. He looks at Lydia, then turns around and carefully puts the paper down on the table in front of him. Shakes his head, pauses, and then shakes it again as he slumps back in his chair. “No. And I don’t know that it’d be the ghosts who’d get him either.”

“Would the Underworld send somebody at that point?” Allison hesitates, then tucks in her chin and asks. Like them, she’s been brought up to be the one who takes responsibility for asking the question nobody wants to ask. “Stiles, your…your mother…”

Stiles grimaces. “I don’t even know,” he mutters. “I’d have to ask—we need to tell Dad.”

“Well, if it’s any comfort, it appears that this will only work on a very particular full moon. Any other moon, there’s a chance that the Hunt will be able to pull away,” Peter says. He’s oddly cheerful about it, too, but when Stiles looks over to see what’s so pleasant about this, he sees the concern in Peter’s eyes. The man’s just trying to be reassuring. “We had some clues that Blackwood was waiting for the harvest moon, but this confirms it.”

“So we’ve got nearly a month left,” Scott says, also making himself sound confident. “That’s a lot longer than we usually have.”

Derek lifts his brows. “‘Usually’? People try to kill you and take over a lot?” he asks, looking between Stiles and Lydia.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lydia sniffs. She leans over Stiles’ shoulder and picks up the two pieces of paper, then steps back as Stiles pushes away from the table. “Do we look like the type to suffer fools that often?”

“No, not really,” Derek says.

His tone’s just flat enough that Lydia twists around, looking suspicious. Derek stands there, blank-faced, and she sniffs again and pivots on her heel so she’ll be at Stiles’ side when he stands up. “Keep looking into these two,” she says, holding up the sheets. “Stiles and I will go see if his father’s dealt with that alpha yet.”

“If these are the rituals that he wants to do, there’s got to be more that he needs to have than just the right moon, and if we figure out what he needs to collect, we can figure out where he’s been going,” Stiles adds. “We’ll explain to Dad and then we can go find Deucalion and just take care of him before this even comes up again.”

* * *

Stiles’ father thinks it all makes sense too. “Even more reason that we should just be clear with the packs,” he says. “They should want him dead anyway, to protect themselves, and you’d think they could find him faster since he’s one of them.”

“I know, you’d think,” Chris says. “But that’s not how they’re going to think of it.”

Stiles had been about to interrupt so he could bring up Peter’s and Derek’s concern about having packs after them, but Chris appears to be doing his job for him. He glances at Lydia, who looks just as bemused by this, and then settles back.

“Blackwood’s a bogeyman to them at this point,” Chris goes on, with enough of a sigh in his voice to make it clear he’s not trying to be difficult, just honest. “They’re irrational about him. If you mention him, I guarantee they’re just going to go to ground and hope it all blows over.”

“Well, how the hell is it going to blow over if every gate to the Underworld’s wide open and we have ghosts all over the place who’re more than happy to suck the life out of everything where they’re not just ripping it to pieces?” Stiles’ father snaps. He’s so frustrated that he abruptly turns and paces to the end of the hall, then storms back up to glower at Chris. “Don’t they understand the Hunt’s what keeps _them_ safe at night? Do they really think it’s just because they’re werewolves that keeps the dead at bay?”

Chris doesn’t say anything to that, just lets his pained expression speak for itself.

“Hell.” Stiles’ father puts his hand over his face and presses down on it. Then he drags it off. “So what are you saying?”

“Well, keep asking if they’ve seen anything. They could turn up something. But I don’t think letting them in on it being Blackwood we want will help. Or, honestly, to keep bringing up the Hales. They’re too connected to him in the minds of most werewolves.” For a second Chris looks a little bit grudging about that last part, but he’s pragmatic enough to not dwell on it. That is something Stiles likes about him. “It does look like Blackwood’s relying mainly on humans these days anyway, and not knowledgeable ones. We might just be down to tracking him like you would any criminal.”

“Like a criminal who’s got wits and money and magic enough to completely erase his tracks,” Stiles’ father mutters. He rubs at his face again, then nods. “Fine. Who do you want to take with you?”

Chris thinks for a few seconds, then rattles off some names. He includes Scott, which is not actually a surprise—so long as Chris is there to supervise, he doesn’t mind exploiting Scott’s tendency to get the most random people to trust in him. He does _not_ include Allison, and when they go back and summarize the plan for the group in the library, Allison doesn’t seem offended.

“Someone’s got to keep an eye here,” she tells Stiles when he asks her. “And no, I’m not just saying that because of the old vendetta with my family and theirs—I’m saying it because of what I’m seeing. You’re not worried?”

“About what?” Stiles asks, frowning.

Chris and Stiles’ father went back out right away, and since a lot of the staff is now being employed on the sweep for Deucalion, he and she are down in the kitchens helping to put out a cold dinner. Stiles isn’t going to claim he could do what their cooks can do, not by a long shot—catering to formal dinners of fifty or more, with the diets of several different living and undead supernatural types to account for, is not a skill you find in even royal halls—but his parents raised him to be able to look after himself. So he doesn’t need a servant to slice some boiled and smoked meats, or to set them out prettily on a platter with bread and cheese.

Allison finishes up the cucumber animal she’d been carving, because she’s always prepared to explain why she’s carrying around a big knife and Scott adores anything that gives him an excuse to play with cute animals, and then gives Stiles a significant look before turning around to face where, across the kitchen, Derek is assisting Lydia with mulling the wine. Namely, he’s wielding the specially-adapted poker she had the smith make and she’s critiquing the angle at which he’s inserting it into the mugs.

“I know you two…you understand each other, but are you sure _they_ do?” Allison asks Stiles.

Derek sticks the poker in and wine hisses up and over the lips of the mugs as it hits the red-hot metal. He promptly yanks it back out, which saves the floor from being covered in froth, but which means the wine won’t be fully mulled and the poker needs to go back into the fire to heat up again. But when he turns, Lydia impatiently snatches the iron from him and drives it into the hearth herself, jerking her skirts back with her free hand to keep them away from the sparks. He stands there for a second, his hand still half-curled around empty air, looking on with a bemused expression.

“I think they’re afraid of her, which sounds about right,” Stiles says.

Allison levels a frustrated look at him, but since she’s not Erica or Lydia, she doesn’t just march off with her hands in the air, muttering about how you can’t help those who don’t want it. “I think you know what I really mean.”

Lydia pulls out the iron, considers the color of its glowing end, and then turns on her heel. She positions the poker’s branched tip over the mugs, then plunges it straight down into the wine, which fizzes loudly enough to be heard across the room, but which doesn’t boil over. Head tilted, Derek nods once, and then immediately lifts his hands in surrender as Lydia notices and glances over to him. She turns back to hang the poker up and he lowers his hands, but keeps looking at her.

“I think we’ve got _werewolves_ in the room,” Stiles mutters out of the corner of his mouth. He flips the last of the cheese he’s been slicing onto the platter, then picks it up. “Anyway, what, are you worried about them?”

Allison gets the other platter with the condiments and then follows him into the hall. “No, that’s not what I mean. They’re strong enough to survive without an alpha, then I’m not going to worry about what they’ll do to survive. But _that_ is what I mean—if they’re trying to get close to you two, in that way, because they think—”

“That that’s going to get us to help them? Because that’s pretty much already happening,” Stiles says.

“I mean,” Allison persists, audibly swallowing an irritated sigh. “That they might think you’re the weaker one, because Lydia gets possessive in front of other people and you don’t.”

Stiles slows down a pace, blinking in surprise. “You know, I completely thought you were going to say you thought they were going for the old divide-and-conquer routine.”

“Well, I’m not saying they aren’t.” She’s got the smaller platter, so she slides ahead of him to get the library door. But she just puts her hand on it without pushing it open, and twists around to look seriously at Stiles. “They could be doing that too. But they don’t seem stupid, and I don’t think they’re so overconfident they could really think you two would break up after just a couple days of them.”

“True,” Stiles says, thinking it over. It’s not a bad point that Allison is making, even if…even if it doesn’t sit well with him. And he doesn’t think that that’s all just because honestly, he is growing to like Peter, and Derek is—well, Derek is very easy to look at, and personality-wise, he kind of amuses Stiles. “But isn’t that to our advantage, them underestimating me?”

“Or it means they’ll go after you first,” Allison says. “Even if you can take care of yourself, Stiles.”

He does frown at her then. “Why would they go after me? Really, what do they _have_ to go after me about? That just loses them an ally when they don’t have any, _and_ from the sound of it, we’re the safest place they’ve stayed in a while. It’s not like they could stay here and away from all the packs who don’t like them if they did that.”

“It’s not because of my family’s history with them,” is Allison’s immediate, defensive response. She seems to realize that that makes her less convincing, and scales back her tone and her posture, taking a deep breath before going on. “I know you’re going to think that, but it’s not. It’s just the way they are—I’ve met and worked with a lot of werewolves since my father and I came here, you know that, and Peter and Derek just…they’re not the same.”

What she’s saying sounds vaguely familiar, but the muddled echoes of memory it calls up don’t make him stiffen up, so it must have come from someone he usually listens to. He tries to remember who, absently shifting the weight of the tray against his hands, and his silence in the meantime seems to reassure her.

“I’m not really sure how to describe it to you, because I’m really not—I’m really not trying to just go on what I’ve heard or read about their family,” she goes on. She picks her words as if she’s taking a moment to examine each one before saying it. “It’s something about the way they act, and…it’s not that they’re alpha-less. Or maybe—maybe that is it. They don’t have an alpha, but they’ve stuck together and they…they _swagger_ , you know. They really aren’t omegas.”

“Well, isn’t that a good trait?” Stiles asks. Erica, he suddenly thinks. She’d said something like that too. “That they’re not afraid?”

“For them, it would be. But for us…” Allison shakes her head slightly, her eyes clouded with thought. “It’d take a _lot_ of will for them to stay together this long. Will and drive—they must be incredibly single-minded. There are whole packs who can’t focus themselves that well. And I think I’m just worried that we still don’t know for sure what _they’re_ focused on.”

Then she pushes open the library door, not giving Stiles any time to react to that before suddenly they’ve got Peter looking at them from where he’s half-risen from his seat. He limps over a pace before Stiles calls out to stay put, they’ll bring the food to him, and then he nods in thanks and goes back to some notes he’d been jotting.

Once her platter’s down on a table, Allison goes back to the door to hold it for Lydia and Derek, who come in just a few minutes later with the wine. Which is mulled to perfection, and which Allison refuses when offered—Derek twitches resentfully before applying himself to the ham—with the excuse that it’s time to go do a round about the house and make sure all’s in order. “When I’m back I’ll eat,” she says. “Just save me some of the runny one?”

“Sure,” Stiles says, pushing that cheese to the side.

“Not so shocking, given her family roots in France,” Peter says, glancing at the cheese. Then he looks up and across the room, at the door Allison’s just exited through; he’s resettling himself and his hand goes briefly to his side, so it might be the pain that makes his lip curl slightly. But probably not, given what he says next. “Leaving us to our own devices, on the other hand…”

For a second Stiles thinks Peter must have overheard them through the door and he fumbles the butter he’s trying to spread over a slice of bread. The butter boat clatters against the table and Peter looks curiously over at him, while Derek—was timely distracted by Lydia stabbing a knife into the hunk of roast beef with unnecessary violence. That also attracts Peter’s attention, so he only gives Stiles the briefest glance before raising his brows at Lydia.

“Use the utensils,” Lydia says, arching her brows back as if she’d always meant to be so blunt.

“I’m not entirely sure what company you’ve been keeping, but let me assure you, we were raised to be civilized,” Peter says dryly. He smiles at her, then, without looking away, lifts his hand and pops his claws. Reaches for the platter and…just as Lydia stiffens in real offense, he skewers a fly that none of them had noticed.

Still smiling, Peter leans back and takes out a handkerchief, which he proceeds to wipe off his claw. He makes a show of holding the claw in the light and checking it, then gives it another rub before finally sheathing all claws, picking up knife and fork, and beginning to cut up a piece of meat into dainty pieces.

Lydia is unimpressed, says the way that she haughtily picks up a jar of mustard when Peter seems to glance its way. But it’s actually Derek who rolls his eyes as he thumps down into his seat. “I don’t know why we need to make a point out of this,” he mutters. 

He says that mostly to the smoked trout he’s trying to flake onto his bread, but still, it’s enough to get him a long stare from Peter. Stiles sneaks a look at Lydia over the mug of wine he’s raised to his lips and she slides an amused one back.

“I see you’ve finally started to pay _some_ attention to our hosts,” Peter drawls, still eyeing Derek.

Stiles must move or something like that, because then everyone looks at him. He has the mug, so he takes a drink and lets that hide his face till he thinks he can sound and look natural. Then he puts the mug down. “So where were we again?”

“I think we have the bulk of the ritual pieced together at this point,” Peter says, with considerably less sarcasm. He pushes himself up again and riffles through the papers, then extracts a folio-size sheet that he smooths over the top of the rest. “Quite lengthy, as it turns out—several places where we can interrupt him.”

Peter’s drawn a kind of timeline for each of the…thirteen steps, Stiles quickly counts. He sits down for a closer look and discovers that not only that, but the man’s also gone and listed critical moments within each step, which if interrupted, would irrevocably stop the entire ritual. Well, till the next year, anyway.

“I guess that explains why he was out even though it was the wrong moon,” Stiles says. “Practice run.”

“Still risky. A few of these, if he’d muddled them the wrong way, he’d be the Underworld’s concern by now,” Lydia says, leaning over him with one hand on his shoulder for balance. Then her hand moves to his ear, and she pulls back and frowns as she starts tugging at the top part of the lobe. “I thought you just went to get the rhubarb honey.”

“I did,” Stiles says, confused. Then he realizes what she’s picking at and he tries to nudge her away, only to get pinched. “Ow! No, really, I did, it’s just I forgot—”

“That that’s _my_ basilisk hide drying back there?” Lydia says. “I told you, if you want a scale, ask me. But if I go back there and it has little bald spots all over it—”

Stiles bats her off and then grabs the nearest book so he can use it as a shield. “I didn’t, I didn’t, go count them.”

Lydia sniffs at him, as he probably deserves—although the ear-pinching is really uncalled-for—and then is distracted by something on the table. She absently picks up a piece of dried fruit as she bends over, then pops that into her mouth and uses that hand to retrieve one of the books from under a tumble of papers. “Who pulled _this_?”

“Scott, before Argent took him,” Derek volunteers. He sounds a little odd, gulping his words, and Stiles looks over just in time to catch him wiping off his face how much he’d clearly been enjoying Stiles and Lydia’s bickering.

Peter’s eyeing Derek again and for a second Stiles is torn about what he wants to follow up on first, but…deranged alpha trying to kill them so he can violate the separation of life and death in about a thousand horrible ways. So Stiles looks at the spine of the book Lydia’s holding. “Oh, you know what, he must have been in a hurry, this one would be next to the one on Sibylline interpretation I told him to grab.”

“Likely,” Lydia says. She turns the book over in her hand, then tucks it under one arm and starts off towards the shelves. But after only two paces, she comes back and reaches for the bag Allison left hanging over her chair. “Come to think of it, we should pull the rest of the set.”

Stiles is in the middle of drinking more wine—the fires they light to keep the books dry and free of mold also make the library very drying on the throat—so he doesn’t immediately answer her. It’s not like he doesn’t mean to, it’s just that he figures he can make sure he doesn’t choke first.

Derek, on the other hand, seems to think she needs a reply right away and pushes back from the table. “They’re all that size?” he says, nodding at the one under Lydia’s arm.

Which is quite sizable, and it’s a testament to how fit the Hunt keeps her that she’s holding it without seeming to make an effort. But bringing over all the books she wants in one trip would stagger even Stiles, so it’s not surprising that Lydia doesn’t object, and merely abandons the bag and retraces her steps with a clear expectation that Derek will just follow her. Which he does.

“I don’t think she’s in any danger,” Peter says, unexpectedly close to Stiles’ ear. For an injured man, he maneuvers himself quite skillfully, swaying on the arm he has braced against the table to avoid the elbow Stiles almost throws into his side. His brows are a little raised, as if he’s startled himself, but his eyes under them are far too sharp. “Quite able to make her own choices, that one.”

“You mean Lydia,” Stiles says, a little flatly, especially on her name.

People outside of the household don’t really understand him and her—even in the household, they don’t always, but household members usually do understand that there’s no point in trying to question it. Stiles and Lydia are how they are, and they’re both quite content that way, and really, that’s why they’re engaged to each other.

Well, all right, it’s a little more than that. But part of it is they very much know that nobody else is ever going to just…just take how they are as a given. Tolerate, sure. Sympathize with on occasion, or maybe even side with, but no other person Stiles has ever met is as _comfortable_ with his natural self as Lydia is. His father loves him, but at least once a day the man has an expression as if he can’t even fathom how Stiles got to this point. Whereas Stiles doubts he’s ever truly shocked Lydia. Surprised, caught off-guard, of course. But shocked is different.

So while he generally thinks of himself as the more easygoing of them, it does irritate him when people start acting as if her behavior is subject to their judgment. She’s _different_ , and honestly, better.

“Yes,” Peter says slowly, clearly sensing he’s treading on dangerous territory. He regards Stiles for a second, then moves away along the table, using the edge as a guide for his weaker side. “My apologies if I’ve given offense. That wasn’t the intent at all, I only wanted to…I can speak to Derek, if there’s anything to speak to him about, but I leave that entirely up to your discretion.”

“That’s still a little backwards,” Stiles says. He’s still annoyed, but he’s also amused at how much Peter is straining to downplay the moment. He’s almost afraid the man might tear a stitch, so hard is Peter trying to pose himself casually. “She can tell him herself if she minds.”

Peter tilts his head in acknowledgement. “True,” he says. He picks up some bread and some cheese, and commences to layer them, his head angled down towards the food but his eyes still on Stiles. “It’s been some time since we’ve been in company where a hint of an unnatural inclination wouldn’t put our lives at risk. Unnatural being in the uneducated eye of the beholder, of course.”

“How long ago did Deucalion steal from you?” Stiles asks, his curiosity pricked by how weary Peter sounds.

“A year and a half ago,” Peter says. Then he gives Stiles a tight smile. “But we lost the estate a couple years before that. We’ve still the paper title, but that’s worth exactly what it’s printed in if you don’t have the manpower to defend your borders, and we didn’t. We were more or less camping out in the family cemetery when he dug up my sister’s body, which I suppose explains why we’re so driven to find the man. It’s infuriating that he slipped past us.”

“Honestly, I think you’ve plenty of other good reasons to be infuriated at him,” Stiles blurts out. Then he grimaces and ducks his head, thinking he sounds patronizing.

But Peter just chuckles, and when Stiles looks up again, the other man’s looking amused but not insulted. “Also true, but I’m old enough to know the dangers of being blinded by my emotions. Let them push you towards your goals, of course, but you can’t let them rule you.”

Then he continues looking at Stiles. His expression changes—the warmth isn’t coming from amusement any more, and it also intensifies, enough that Stiles feels the prickle of it on his skin. Stiles shifts, unsure how to respond and uncomfortable with his uncertainty, and Peter abruptly drops his gaze and sits down. Then the man picks up a pen, and he’s reaching for a sheet of paper when Stiles hears footfalls behind him and realizes Lydia and Derek are returning.

Lydia slows slightly, looking at Stiles, and he shrugs her off and pulls over a book himself. Speaking of distractions, they really do need to figure out what Deucalion’s likely to need to try the ritual again, so that they can guess where he’ll go shopping. Everything else should wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of taking over the Hunt by slaying the previous leader is cribbed partly from the priesthood of the sacred grove of Nemi (Greek, granted, but centered around sacred trees and human sacrifice), and partly from the Balan/Balin story in the Arthurian cycle.
> 
> Carved fruit/vegetable animals was an important banqueting skill back in the day, when people went all-out to impress at mealtimes.
> 
> Mulled wine was, in fact, done by sticking a red-hot poker into the spiced wine to flash off the alcohol, although people often had special pokers for it, and weren't using the same ones they were also using to poke the logs.


	12. Chapter 12

“I think we should talk about it,” Lydia says to Stiles the next day.

He hasn’t even finished breakfast, and he was up late researching, and he still doesn’t feel completely recovered from the last Hunt. “What, not after we find the alpha who’s trying to wreck the universe?”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Lydia snorts. “He’s not trying to wreck the universe, he’s only trying to wreck our world. And you know as well as I do that you’re a terrible researcher when you’ve a tangent on your mind.”

“It’s not a tangent!” Stiles immediately says, and just as immediately, realizes that that was a serious tactical error. Now she knows he’s got something else on his mind.

Lydia stares down at him, arms crossed in front of her, fan dangling from one hand to tap impatiently against her hip. He tries to look away from her and finish his food, but the mere stare of a banshee can rob even the richest morsel of all flavor. Or maybe that’s just her.

He sighs and puts down his knife. “Isn’t Dad supposed to be coming back soon? We should go over how we’re ranking these new leads for him and Chris.”

The fan stops tapping, and Stiles lets out his breath. But then Lydia sits down in the chair across from him. She puts the fan away and reaches for the tea set. Carefully pours herself a cup, which she then proceeds to dose with sugar and milk. “You’ve galangal under your nails,” she says, primly clinking her spoon against the cup rim to shake off the excess tea. “And you were up remarkably early this morning. I heard the pestle going.”

“Well, because I was getting a fresh poultice ready so we could change the dressings on Peter’s injuries, and you were the one who volunteered that old underskirt of yours to rip up into bandages,” Stiles says, narrowing his eyes at her.

Lydia doesn’t exactly smile, but she has other ways of making it known that she’s satisfied with herself. “Sniffed, did he?”

“Enough that Derek said something to him when I was throwing out the wash-water,” Stiles mutters. “When I came back, he was wiping blood off his chin, and said he’d cut himself shaving. Which he figured he’d do with his claws, right there, instead of in a washroom. Derek, I mean.”

“Not surprising. He does seem to be the less schooled of the two, at least where his emotions are concerned,” Lydia says, sipping at her tea. Then she raises her brow at Stiles. “Peter spends so much time clearing his nose in your company that I thought I’d settle it for him exactly what he’s been scenting on you.”

“Right.” Stiles picks up his knife again, dips it into the butter, and then slowly begins to spread that over a scone. “And obviously, Derek’s been bribing you with French-style baked goods because he’s trying to get to your collection of archaic weaponry.”

Lydia lowers her cup. “You eat your fair share, Stiles.”

“Oh, for…Peter doesn’t flirt with you as much because whenever he opens his mouth, you’re always fingering that—” Stiles nods at her fan “—and there has to be a point where he’s hurt too much to enjoy the doctoring. If you want, we could just switch and—”

“I could assist him with his sponge-bathing while Derek takes off his shirt and prepares your favorite sausage? Lovingly molding it with his fingers?” Lydia says.

Stiles doesn’t actually have the scone in his mouth. It’s just at his lips. But even so, he chokes and then has to steal her tea to clear his throat. “You are _terrible_ and perfect and I love you and why are we fighting?”

She hates admitting it, but she really can’t _not_ find him funny. However mad she is—and this isn’t even close, she’s just being stern—he can always make her laugh. “We’re not,” she says, once she’s mastered her twitching lips. “I just want to know why you’re giving Peter the impression that spying on Derek and me actually is important to you.”

“I’m not—” Stiles starts, and then he pauses and really thinks it over. Then makes a face at himself and slouches down in his chair. Stares at his scone for a second. “It’s just really unusual to see you tolerate somebody hovering for so long, I guess. I mean, I know he’s really decorative, but that’s usually not enough for you. Makes me curious.”

“Well, he has a brain too, and _that_ is rare,” Lydia says, a little tart.

Stiles raises his brows and the faintest hint of pink enters her cheeks. He grins at her, then mock-cringes as her hand feints towards the fan. “You really like him.”

Lydia inhales sharply, as if she’s going to protest that, and Stiles straightens up. He frowns at her in confusion and again, for a moment she looks as if she wants to deny it. She should know him better than that, and he’s about to toss the scone aside and reach out to reassure her when she shakes her head.

“Well, like you say, this doesn’t normally happen,” she says. She’s still uncomfortable about it, and then _she_ puts her hand out and lays it on his wrist. “You don’t speak much to him, and it is your household, Stiles.”

“It’s just technically mine till we get married, and even then, that’s just dropping a seal over something where the ink’s dried ages ago,” Stiles says. “You—didn’t—don’t actually think that I’d…be upset, or something like that, did you? Do you? I mean—”

“I said yes to your proposal because I wanted to,” Lydia interrupts. 

Her voice has gone soft, but if anything, it’s the firmest it’s ever been, and her hand on his wrist isn’t even closing around that. It’s just resting there and if he moved to just lean towards her, it’d likely fall off. But somehow the mere weight of it seems to press right through him, like a thin but unbreakable chain that runs into the very core of the world. Earth isn’t the Hunt’s natural sphere, but not all grounding things are inimical to him. Something to keep him in touch with this world, the living one, is necessary, least he gut himself and become the hollow, soulless plaything Deucalion’s looking to make them into. And that’s what she does for him, what she’s always done for him.

“And I wanted to because,” Lydia goes on, with a deep breath. “Because I wanted to. And I knew you wanted to. It wasn’t anything about alliances or strategy, and even if I enjoy both of those, I don’t want _why_ we’re getting married to change, Stiles.”

“I wasn’t planning on it changing,” Stiles says, still puzzled about where her outburst is coming from. And about the intensity of it, as if this is something she’s been bottling up; as far as he could tell, this hasn’t been much different from anything else they’ve ever done. Unless…“You know that just because—all right, I like Peter, I’ll be honest about that, I do and I know that’s still getting ahead and we still don’t know everything they’re up to and don’t even know what _they_ want, especially once we get Deucalion squared away, but—but I still want to marry _you_. You know that, right?”

For a second, as she stares at him and he thinks her expression looks surprised, like this wasn’t all settled ages ago, he feels a small but very cold, very heavy knot of panic start to tie up his insides. He assumes things, that’s something everybody complains he does, and it’s gotten him into trouble before. And the great thing—one of the wonderful things about Lydia is that he can assume all he wants, but she’s always already two steps ahead of his assumptions, both guessing what they are and figuring out where they’ve overreached. Well. Usually.

But then she smiles at him. It’s bright as the summer sun and it lets him know whatever the problem was, it wasn’t a real problem. Not the kind of real that’s still there in the cold light of dawn, stiff and unmoving beside your aching head.

“Of course,” Lydia says, as if she’d never even raised the question. She holds his wrist a moment longer, then suddenly leans forward.

Stiles startles, still too preoccupied with making certain she’s all right to notice what she’s actually doing, and her lips land on his mouth instead of beside it. His knee knocks into her skirts too, and while he doesn’t think he actually bumped her, the folds are too voluminous for him to know exactly what he’s doing, so he instinctively puts his hands up to her waist in case.

She hesitates, her lips rubbing softly over his, almost kitten-like, and then he hears a little demurring noise escape from her. Lydia’s hand pushes up to his elbow and then her other one pushes up against his chest, and she leans _down_ , not back, and he shrugs too because hey, if she thinks it’s all right for that kind of break, he’s not going to tell her she’s wrong. He usually doesn’t say that anyway, for anything, because she usually _isn’t_ , and as her mouth parts and a warm lick of air slips into his mouth, he…agrees with her.

Lydia makes another, more engaged noise, her hand climbing to knead at his shoulder as he tugs her closer, using the bend of his wrist to fluff some of the skirts out from between them so he can get the glancing warmth of her thighs through the silk. Her fingertips tickle at his neck and he nips her lower lip, then sucks it in as she drops his wrist and simply hikes up her skirt, and moves herself from her chair to his and—

“Hey, my lord and lady and whatever misbehavior you’re entertaining,” calls Erica through the door, _before_ she knocks. She pauses, even though the spells on the door mean she shouldn’t be able to hear the aggravated sounds that Lydia is making as she defiantly grabs the back of Stiles’ neck. “So you may or may not be interested in knowing that Chris and Scott are back—”

Stiles slows down where he’s working his fingers into the laces at the back of Lydia’s dress, making a curious ‘mmm’ noise. He assumes that they’re both all right _and_ that they don’t have any important news, since Erica doesn’t sound urgent, but he does like to greet Scott whenever his friend’s returned. On the other hand, points out Lydia’s tongue in his mouth, Scott’s going to find him if he doesn’t find Scott, and that’s probably another ten minutes. At least.

“—and that they don’t have Deucalion, but they _did_ find one of his hidey-holes, which was in a mausoleum—”

Lydia snorts in disgust, while her hands don’t lose the least bit of enthusiasm as they untwist Stiles’ cravat. Modus operandi does make him easier to predict, Stiles notes to her with a brisk flip of her skirts out of the way, sliding his hand up her thigh. She lets out an agreeing noise that she then drags out in a throaty, burring way that he’s actually not sure he’s heard from her before, and he ends up squirming some at how that vibration seems to go from her breasts into his chest and then _down_ between his legs.

“—so all the stuff of his they brought back is covered in centuries of grave-dust and Derek doesn’t want to ruin the clothes we’re lending him so he’s down to his breeches,” Erica says, raising her voice. “Also, Peter? Healed up enough so that he’s decided to remove some of his stitches himself. Specifically, the ones in his shoulder. The ones he can reach, anyway—when I left, he was getting to the part of his back where he can’t reach, and I don’t know that _Chris_ is going to get them for him and—”

Once they’ve banged the door open, Stiles and Lydia each take one side of the frame and hang from it as they stare at her. Erica is fully unrepentant.

“Honestly, you’ve left them without anybody to seduce for a good half-hour,” she snits, with almost Jackson-level presumptuousness. Though unlike him, the glint in her eye says it’s self-aware. “No wonder they’re getting antsy.”

“Oh, crash the racetracks with Jackson again if you’re that anxious for a chase,” Lydia mutters. She steps back into the room to glance over herself in a glass hanging on the wall, smooths her hair and twitches at her dress, and then flounces past Erica. “Hills know that they’re not going to bother, not for you.”

Erica makes as if she’s taken a mortal wound, then straightens up behind Lydia and rolls her eyes. Then she looks at Stiles, much more seriously. “So. Well, look, I’m not the one who has to convince a potential Argent father-in-law that my friends _don’t_ have dangerous hobbies, but…I guess I should still ask, since I like you, and you like her. You know what you’re doing there?”

“Since there’s not really anything to do, yes,” Stiles says, just as Lydia turns on her heel to scald Erica with her eyes. “Lot of research to get through, Erica. You know me and research, I might eye a side inquiry or too, but between Lydia and me, we always get back to the main road.”

“With a minimum of waylaying in the meantime,” Lydia says dryly. “At least when I’m involved.”

“All right, all right. Just asking,” Erica says, rounding her eyes and shuffling around so she’s slightly behind Stiles’ shoulder. “Since, you know, it’s out there. Shirtless. So blatantly that even I wonder if I should be confessing to somebody.”

“It’s fine,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “Lydia and I are fully aware.”

“ _Aware_ is one way to put it,” Erica mutters, but she falls in line behind them. “Fine, I’ll just keep enjoying the view, long as you’re enabling it.”

* * *

The view, as it turns out, isn’t scandalous at all by the time they reach the courtyard behind the stables, where all the things Chris brought back are being sorted through. A muddy puddle is leaking from the unusually high stack of used buckets in one corner, and a line of damp shirts hanging from a nearby clothesline provides evidence that Erica hadn’t been exaggerating about the state of undress. But the only shirtless person around when Stiles and Lydia arrive is Chris himself, and he’s shirtless because he’s busy mopping blood off his arm with a rag.

Allison had passed them just moments before, a bundle of cloth under one arm, and she hadn’t looked at all disturbed, but Stiles immediately looks around for her. Then he remembers seeing her, just as Scott comes around the corner, a bucket in either hand. One of it has clean water, which he sets down by Chris, and the other is full of skinning knives tacky with half-dried blood.

“No victory dance, take it that wasn’t Deucalion’s pelt?” Stiles says.

Scott knows him better than to think Stiles really approves of skinning werewolves, but he still gives Stiles a pained look. “No, they were just what we had handy,” he says, oddly reluctant. “I need to remember to grind them before Allison puts them away. Listen, Stiles…”

Lydia ignores the byplay and marches straight up to Chris for the full story. “Well, none of that blood appears to be yours, so what did you turn up?”

Just as he’s turning to answer her, someone comes around the other corner, behind Stiles and Lydia. Chris’ eyes go past them to whoever it is, and Stiles guesses it’s one of Derek or Peter by how Chris’ fingers suddenly twist in the rag. Then Chris looks back at Lydia as if he’s not bothered at all. “Clothes, some money. A couple walking sticks that’ve been soaked in…I’m not sure, but you’re going to want to look at it,” he says. “No books. Some scraps of paper, but they’ve just got lunar observations that tell us what date we already knew he was looking at.”

It turns out to be Derek, who’s dressed in what’s obviously a fresh shirt, but who hasn’t bothered to tuck in its tails. He swings a bit wider of Stiles and Lydia than he should have to, even with the bundle he’s got under his arm, and from the way he’s eyeing Chris, it’s so the two of them can keep each other in their sights. He stops over by the wall and squats down to put his bundle, which is wrapped in a horse blanket that’s slowly soaking through, on the ground.

“Also one of the knights,” Chris says after an uncharacteristic hesitation. He squats too, going down behind the bucket Scott brought and cupping his hands as if he’s going to wash himself up, and then he grabs a knife instead and holds it low but ready as Derek unwraps the bundle. “That’s how we came on the spot, actually. Heard him.”

Stiles and Lydia look at each other. The knights no longer talk, seeing as skeletons don’t have functioning vocal cords.

“Looks like Deucalion’s been experimenting on them,” Chris adds, though that’s a bit unnecessary at this point. “Put some flesh back on him, enough so that it made it harder to knock him down.”

“He broke out when we were opening up the crate,” Derek mutters. He’s holding himself as far from the bundle as he can, and only unpicking the string tying it up with the claws of one hand while he keeps the other ready by his side. 

Scott’s moved over to stand right by Stiles, and he alternates between keeping an eye on Derek and looking sympathetically at Stiles. “I’m really sorry,” he says. “We tried to just hold him down, but it just wasn’t—”

“He was going to rip off Scott’s head so I cut off his arm,” Chris says bluntly. “It wasn’t him anyway, was clear he wasn’t more than a puppet. Couldn’t reverse it on the spot, seemed better to just put him out of his misery.”

Chris doesn’t look over at Stiles, his eyes still on the falling folds of the horse blanket. Erica, who initially looked shocked—she must have left before it happened—and who’s been unusually silent since, does glance over, and she’s concerned enough that Stiles almost feels moved to remind her that it’s not like this doesn’t happen, with or without crazed power-hungry alphas. Immortality isn’t as easy as it looks, and when you’re a specter with the single purpose of chasing down wayward spirits every month, peacefully retiring is…not exactly something that comes naturally. Managing that is one reason why the Hunt needs a leader.

But then the last fold of the blanket falls away from Derek’s hand and Stiles forgets about all of that. He’s not even distracted by the sudden grip of Lydia’s hand on his elbow. He does register that she’s pulled her breath tightly between her teeth, but only because it blurs into the high whistle he suddenly hears. Not with his ears—it’s just in his head, a forlorn cry that fades almost as quickly as it comes.

“Should you—” someone says, and Stiles looks up and finds himself on his knees, with Derek across from him with one hand out as if to stop him.

More than one werewolf growls a warning at Derek, who curls his lips into a defensive sneer and hastily pulls back the hand. But he stays put, still squatting there as Stiles gently picks up the bones that’d been in the blanket.

They’ve been scraped of whatever tortured flesh Deucalion had managed to force onto them, but are still smeared here and there with a tarry, unpleasantly viscous stain. Stiles grimaces and makes himself pretend not to notice the way it sticks to his fingers, and just gets on with the necessary: he picks up each femur, holding the ends in each hand as he murmurs over it. Then the other leg bones, and then the arm bones. As he finishes with one, he hands it off to Lydia, who steps briefly away. A sharp _snap_ and then she bends to deposit the fragments back on the blanket.

When Stiles gets to the skull, he goes silent for a moment, looking into the eye-holes. Lydia’s knee nudges his shoulder in question and he shakes himself. “We really need to know—” he starts.

“You don’t need to know that way,” Chris says sharply. Then stands his ground when Stiles and Lydia both turn and look at him.

It’s impressive, how he doesn’t flinch. They might have their peak powers only on the full moon, but whenever they are touching both worlds, they look like it. Look doubled, pallid corpse and flushed youth all at the same time, with Lydia’s banshee spirit burning like the white-hot heart of a fire, while with Stiles, he always has a little moonlight shining through him.

“You don’t need to,” Chris repeats. Swallowing a little roughly, but he doesn’t waver. “We also found a bill for a pharmacist in a nearby town, for eye-drops. Your father’s going there right now to see when Blackwood will be back again.”

“You should have said that _first_ ,” Lydia says, with enough banshee in it that either Scott or Erica lets out a pained whine.

Chris winces himself, nodding in acknowledgment. She steps away from Stiles, who gives himself another shake and then turns back to what he needs to do right now: put the poor knight to real, true death. Really, Chris is right—if they’ve got other leads, there’s no reason to keep torturing the knight. He’s served the Hunt well enough, and now it’s their turn to serve him.

Stiles smooths his palm over the rounded dome of the skull, letting the last words of rest roll out over his tongue. As his hand moves, parts of it flake up under his fingers, then crumble even as they fall to the blanket. By the time he’s done, all of the bones are so brittle that it takes just the slightest draft to make them fall completely to powder, and he provides that as well by pushing himself up onto his feet.

“So Dad’s still out?” he says, turning to Chris.

A brief expression of relief crosses the man’s face—he was worried about Stiles’ reaction—before he becomes business-like again, briskly splashing water on his face and then his arm. “Yes, and I’ll be heading right back to join him. Looks like if we’re quick enough, we might even catch Blackwood this week. Looks like he’s been getting the eyedrops regularly.”

“Why does he need eyedrops?” Lydia asks, looking at Derek.

Derek starts. He hides it well, turning the motion into him scooping up the blanket corners, but still, she speaks to him and he’s instantly at attention. “Gerard Argent did that to him with something—” his eyes flick to Chris, who’s carefully wooden “—some poison on the blade, or something like that. Peter found out all the details, I didn’t think it was imp—that happened years ago but he’s still blind, the wounds won’t heal up. Seems to hurt him a lot, far as we can tell.”

“The prescription was for a really strong numbing ointment, especially once you add in wolfsbane,” Scott adds. Then looks a little embarrassed as Stiles turns to him. “I mean, I think, you explained that to me the one time, with the dragonet—”

“I totally remember, and I love it when you do too and prove to everybody you’re not just my alpha muscle,” Stiles says delightedly, tossing an arm over his friend’s shoulders and leaning into him for a second. “Not that you aren’t that too, I mean, all that wrestling with Boyd’s definitely paid off and then some, but hidden depths, Scott. They’re what keep people coming back.”

“Anyway, your father said sit tight and when we’ve got him, we’ll bring him back here to figure out what’s to be done,” Chris says. He finishes washing up and stands up. Looks at Stiles, then Lydia, and when neither of them object, ask questions, or do anything but nod dutifully, he…looks at them again, suspicious as hell.

But in the end, there’s not really much he can say, and he’s got a reason to hurry, so he just mutters that he’ll check the household accounts with Stiles in half an hour, so they’ll be clear for the whole week, and then walks off with the bucket. “I suppose that that was marginally worthwhile,” Lydia remarks as he rounds the corner. “Aside from poor Herne, which I’ll chalk up to typically bad taste.” 

Erica looks at them as if she can’t remotely fathom what goes in in their minds. “One, he hadn’t broken out when I was down and I just thought they were going to stick him in the crypt till we could fix him. Two—two—are _you_ blind? I mean, I know, you and Stiles till the moon falls out of the sky, but _that_ is _not_ something to just wave off.”

Scott blinks rapidly, the rest of his expression saying that his confusion might actually be more of a defensive mechanism to keep his mind out of places he’d rather not go with his future father-in-law. But then his usual peacemaking instinct starts to kick in and he holds his hands up so both of the women look at him, and…well, Lydia’s right, this is kind of not the appropriate conversation for laying a knight to rest. Even if Herne had been so famous for carousing in his day that he’s still got popular ballads sung about him in certain parts of the country.

“What,” Derek says as Stiles reaches for the pouched-up blanket. Then he seems to catch on and gets up. “Where do you…”

“You can just give it to me,” Stiles says, but Erica and Lydia’s bickering aside, he’s still a little shaken by things. He doesn’t really try to take the blanket from Derek, and Derek just…comes along with him.

They don’t go that far, just out of the courtyard to the other side of the wall, where the wind is strong enough to pick up the bone powder and carry it off towards the woods. Derek does hand over the blanket for that, but instead of going back inside, steps off to the side and watches Stiles shake it out.

“I don’t think he knew what he was doing,” Derek abruptly offers. Stiles looks at him and he shrugs uncomfortably. “Didn’t seem to know anything at all—he didn’t even have the little flames for eyes, like the other Hunt riders. There just wasn’t anything in the…the sockets.”

“He probably didn’t. They’re not like regular spirits, they really don’t answer to anybody but the Hunt. Most Deucalion could’ve done was lock him up and use the body,” Stiles mutters, just before giving the blanket a last snap.

He’s rougher than his wrists can take. A twist of pain arcs through one and he winces, accidentally loosening his grip. The wind’s picked up for him to whisk off the powder and it almost takes the blanket with it, too.

But Derek gets it, stepping out and snagging it as smoothly as a cat might pull down a bird mid-flight. The wind immediately dies down and the other man lets the blanket dangle limply from one hand, looking at Stiles. When Stiles doesn’t do anything, Derek opens his mouth as if to ask. Then changes his mind and just begins to roll up the blanket, very slowly.

“He’ll be all right. He doesn’t have to worry about anything now,” Stiles says awkwardly. He’s grown up all his life around death, knowing that death is merely just a doorway, and he still doesn’t know how to have a graceful conversation about this sort of thing. Some subjects just seem to be destined to be difficult.

Derek stops rolling up the blanket and looks disbelievingly at Stiles. “You…I think I’m supposed to be telling you that.”

“Well, you don’t have to. I mean, it doesn’t seem like you want to, and I’m—I took care of him. He’ll be fine,” Stiles says, blinking.

The other man continues to stare at him. Once or twice Derek attempts to say something, only to end it with a sharp shake of the head. Then he abruptly twists away and stares at where some of the powder’s still swirling in the air, a frustrated grunt coming from him.

“I don’t understand you at all,” he says to the swirl. “You have a castle and a household who takes care of you, and a pack and you run the Hunt, and—you’re engaged to her and you’re acting like you’re worried about _my_ feelings?”

“I don’t know that I’d say I’m _worried_ about them. I don’t really have to, when you’re shoving them out there so anybody can trip over them,” Stiles says, annoyed now. Sure, Peter’s ingratiating act can be a little wearying, but getting an authentic reaction out of him still is less work than figuring out what’s going to turn Derek prickly. And Stiles could not even try, and just start off demanding all the time like Lydia does, and honestly, maybe that’s the key to Derek. “I’m more curious about what they’re doing out there, since tripping leads to bruises, and bruises hurt.”

For a second, Derek looks exactly like everybody else does when they’re about to ask where that metaphor had been going before it routed right into nonsense. And then, unlike the rest of the world, Derek stops and takes a breath. Looks at Stiles again, with less irritation and more genuine curiosity.

“Does it—does it hurt you? When you lose one?” he asks. Pauses to check Stiles’ reaction. “Is it going to affect you the way you two were right after the Hunt?”

“We’re not—that’s not how we work. Well, it’s not how we’re supposed to, anyway,” Stiles says, remembering where this whole mess is coming from. “If Deucalion gets his way, then it would, but the knights are part of the Hunt, I’m part of the Hunt. We’re not parts of each other. And I’ve seen this happen…well, not this, exactly, but we have to lay them to rest once in a while.”

Derek takes that in, then nods. Not to pretend he fully understands, because his face says he doesn’t, but just to acknowledge that Stiles took a moment to explain. Which is…fairer, Stiles thinks. “So you’ll be all right?”

Stiles shrugs. “Got an alpha to track down, and look, much as she likes ordering people around, Lydia actually hates it when other people do her dirty work. One, she never really trusts that they’re going to do it right—not that she thinks Dad or Chris are incompetent, but—”

“So you’ll be all right?” Derek asks again, and when Stiles looks at him, a flicker of amusement goes through his eyes. He’s more reticent than Peter, but there seems to be a certain family sense of humor. “Listen, I…don’t mind her, but right now I’m asking about you.”

“You don’t _mind_ her?” Stiles says, raising his brows. “And here I thought you’d put in so much good work, getting on her good side. She’s not one for wasted effort, I’ll have you know.”

On the other hand, Derek’s sense of humor isn’t quite as robust as Peter’s, at least in certain situations. He stiffens a little and for a second Stiles thinks the man is just going to walk away from him. But then Derek rolls his shoulders back and it’s clear he’s going to stick it out. “I know you two are engaged.”

“I know, you said, and also, I _am_ engaged to her,” Stiles says. “I know her, a lot better than you, so if this is about some—like she needs my permission to do anything, then wow, she’s really wasted time with you.”

“I noticed that,” Derek says tightly. He’s still tense, but sarcasm’s starting to creep back into his voice. “How she is, not the time-wasting. It’s just I’ve spent a while lately not trying to get killed by a lot of different people, and it’s not really how I like spending my time.”

Well, that…Stiles can’t blame the man for that. He suddenly wonders what Derek’s like outside this, when the man’s got to worry about werewolf packs treating him and Peter like bad-luck charms and they don’t have a certain place to spend every night. If Derek’s this touchy when he’s assured that nobody will sneak in and kill him, he must be a constant sore the rest of the time.

“So you’ll be all right,” Derek says a third time, only he doesn’t make it sound like a question. “I think she’ll make sure, both for you and for her…noticed that too. But I figured I’d ask.”

“More or less.” Then Stiles sighs, and lets himself rub at the side of his face. “Well. Eventually. I’ll still be doing—I’ll still be leading the Hunt, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Not really,” Derek says.

Stiles catches himself making a face at the man, and then…just goes ahead and does it, since Derek’s got a hint of a smirk playing around his mouth anyway. “Sure, whatever you like. She’ll appreciate you checking, anyway.”

And just like that, Derek’s irritated again. Even more than before, if possible, with him actually taking a half-step towards Stiles before he gets hold of himself. He hisses under his breath and brings up his hand to press at the bridge of his nose. Then, just as Stiles is asking _why_ he’s so annoyed, he yanks his hand down and glowers at Stiles. “I’m asking to ask you, all right?” he snaps. “Not anything—not _anything_ else.”

He’s…really forceful about it. The way he’s staring at Stiles, it’s almost as if he’s trying to will Stiles into believing in, and why it’s even a matter of belief—that’s confusing. Stiles just made it pretty clear that he doesn’t mind if Derek’s motivated by other impulses, so why Derek needs so badly for him to understand exactly what’s driving the other man is…odd.

“All right,” Stiles finally says, because frankly, it’s just easier.

Derek settles back, exhaling, but he doesn’t actually look any more satisfied. If anything, that shadow that crosses his face might actually be guilt. “Look,” he starts. Falls silent for a second, and then grimaces and holds out the blanket. “Just…just keep an eye out. You’re…you’re this open because you’re not in the same world as the rest of us, I understand that. But you still never know what could happen.”

“That’s not—all right, fine,” Stiles says, suddenly tired of the conversation. Tired of Derek, too, of puzzling over the man and trying to learn what offends or worries him, and just generally tired of trying to make people see what and who Stiles really is, outside of the stories. “Fine. Let’s just go in, and get things ready for my dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's kind of a necromancy cliché to use a skull to raise the dead. Also, severed heads that still retain the power of speech is a recurring theme in Celtic myth.
> 
> Herne is a tribute to a regional English folkloric version of the Hunt.


	13. Chapter 13

When they go back into the courtyard, everything’s been largely cleaned up and the belongings of Deucalion’s that may be useful have been moved into the library for closer examination. Lydia’s not in the courtyard, so Stiles assumes she’s overseeing that and sends Derek that way while he goes off with Chris to just plow through the household accounts and sign off on what’s needed to keep the estate running.

It doesn’t take that long, which is good since Stiles has barely seen his father in the past week and isn’t about to let Chris out without talking to him about it. “I’m making sure he’s eating and sleeping,” Chris immediately says.

Stiles sighs. “I _know_ you do, and thank you truly, from the bottom of my heart, and you know since I knew that, I was going to skip it and ask you—”

“It really would not be a good idea for you to come out and help, and not just because he’s trying to protect you,” Chris tells him, almost as quickly. Then the man stands back and assesses. “Just hear me out, Stiles. Please?”

He’s going to make Stiles listen anyway, but Stiles nods grumpily and slouches back in his chair. Chris has been with the household long enough that he knows how rare it is for the man to ask—‘steward’ is really just something to mark him under for the accounts, since in reality, he doesn’t even always defer to Stiles’ father. But he’s not in it for just his selfish interests, either. He really does believe in protecting others, and he seems to have settled on Stiles’ family as what he’s going to protect, so…Stiles looks up at him. “Fine. Why is it perfectly fine to let you and Dad go set a trap for an alpha who’s already almost diverted the whole Hunt and who’s been luring off our knights to make them into golems?”

“It’s not because if we fail, that leaves you and the Hunt free,” Chris says, dry tone saying he knew exactly where Stiles was planning to stick in his first criticism. “I don’t agree with your father on that one.”

Stiles blinks. “No?”

“It makes sense in theory, but no,” Chris says. “That assumes we’re dead and we may not be, we may simply be captured, and then you have to worry about us being used against you.”

“And…I am so much less worried about my dad now,” Stiles says, eyeing Chris a little. The man’s bluntness is a big reason why Stiles’ father likes him so much, but usually Chris deploys it a little more strategically. “I thought you were trying to convince me not to come along?”

“I am. You shouldn’t come because if you do, your father’s going to be too busy worrying about you to do what he needs to. He’s a lot less ruthless when you’re along,” Chris says. He pauses, as if he might rethink the bluntness now, and then…doesn’t. Just gives Stiles another knowing look. “And don’t even suggest that you should be the one going instead, Stiles.”

“Why not?” Stiles asks, nettled. “Look, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or anything, but both of us run _the_ Hunt, and Dad wasn’t even raised into it like I was, and—”

Chris purses his lips a little, a trace of something that might be regret sliding through his eyes. “Stiles, you’ve never killed a werewolf, and your father’s never killed one in front of you. And he won’t, and you know just as well as I do that that’s got nothing to do with being able to. It’s because of your mother.”

On the other hand, forget bluntness. That wasn’t blunt in the least. That was a scalpel whetted till its edge could literally split hairs, wielded by a true professional, right down to Chris getting the remorse out of the way before the cutting.

Stiles’ jaw hurts. He starts to reach up to it, then realizes it’s because he’s clenching his teeth. He lowers his hand, looks at it, and then puts it flat on the desk. Thinks for a second about flipping the desk into Chris’ face, but even as the thought’s crossing his mind, he knows how stupid and unfair that’d be. Chris is right, after all.

“I’m not taking Scott with me this time either,” Chris goes on after a moment. His tone’s a little softer. He’s not going to apologize for saying what he thinks needs to be said, but he does wish it’d been easier to say, that’s screaming from every inch of him. “Or Allison. Killing a werewolf isn’t simple, especially for one like Blackwood.”

“I know,” Stiles mutters. He sinks down into the chair and stares at the ledger. Reaches out and idly flips one of the bills of sale piled up on one side of it, which sets the whole stack to slipping over. “I know. I mean, if he’s trying to take over the Hunt, clearly he’s the kind where you’d better check he doesn’t have a contingency plan for untimely death, too.”

“I’ve always told her it’s not something to take pride in.” Chris reaches out with one hand and stops the sliding stack, then uses both hands to tidy it. He looks at Stiles over it, giving the sheets a light tap against the table to even them out, and then lays the stack back before Stiles. “Killing a werewolf, or killing anything, really. What you take pride in is how it’s done—if it’s clean, quick—and why it was done. Making sure you had a good reason. But just being able to kill someone who’s difficult to kill…that’s not a good reason.”

“I—look, it’s—it’s fine.” Stiles resists the urge to mess up the papers again. It’s not really coming out of any real hostility towards Chris, anyway; his mother wouldn’t let him be the kind of person who just rips up somebody out of some stupid idea about honor or respect, if they’re doing it to help him. And Chris is, even if it’s not exactly smooth medicine going down. “It’s a good point. You’re right. Dad doesn’t do that. Kill werewolves when I’m there. Also, since we’re on that, I take it you also disagree about bringing him back.”

Chris had been looking increasingly dour—he might not hesitate at delivering the bad news, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it—and at that, he relaxes. “I do. I don’t really see the point in questioning him. We know what he’s after, we have a good idea about how he means to go about doing it, I think questioning him at this point is just going to leave us open to manipulation by him.”

“All right, look, I’m not going to defend every single werewolf out there,” Stiles says, letting his temper flare up again. He’s been really good about this talk and Chris already got the main point across so the man can start returning the favor. “I know some are terrible, and Deucalion’s already gone _far_ beyond proving what kind he is, and just because Mom crossed over to help lay an alpha’s spirit doesn’t mean I’m going to let one who’s clearly a power-hungry _maniac_ convince _me_ that’s a great idea—or talk Dad into it—”

“I didn’t mean that,” Chris says, hasty enough about it that Stiles believes him. “More I was thinking he’d provoke Derek or Peter into killing him when he’s ready for it. Lot easier to contain any ghost of his when he’s not expecting to die.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. He considers that. “True. Makes sense. And I guess once he’s dead, we can take our time figuring out all of what he’d been up to. Maybe leave that to the banshee chatter—Lydia was telling me they’d heard of him.” 

Chris’ brows rise. “Have they? Should look into…anyway, you still have any objections?”

“Well…no, I guess not,” Stiles says. Reluctantly, but upon really thinking it through, he does tend to side with Chris. “I still don’t like Dad being out there, but that’s not my decision.”

“I’ll bring him back,” Chris says. He shifts as if he means to turn away, but then, when he twists on his heel, he’s leaning towards Stiles. His hand even almost rises, as if he wants to put it on Stiles’ shoulder. “Stiles. He’s coming back. You’ve got my word.”

Because that’s his job, Stiles almost spits at him. But…Chris isn’t just saying it because he’s listed as the steward in the ledgers on the table, and that’s not why Stiles actually believes the man means it, either. If Stiles was Lydia, he’d probably mention it anyway, but he’s not her so he just sighs and nods. 

Chris stands in front of him for a little longer, till Stiles almost asks what _else_ the man wants. But he’s tired all of a sudden, too tired to want to start a fresh fight, and he’s still trying to find the energy to just excuse himself when Chris abruptly walks out of the room.

If he wanted to, he could still catch the man—Chris doesn’t sound like he’s walking away that fast, which is probably on purpose—but Stiles…lets him go. Once Chris’ footsteps fade away, Stiles does pull himself up and get the accounts properly put away, but then he lingers in the room, as if staring at a bare desk is going to help shake the nerves out of him.

Or, for that matter, help decrease the chances that anything horrible is going to happen to his father. He might not be able to actually be there, but he’s here, with a whole library at his disposal, and once Deucalion is disposed of, there are still all the various books and ritual implements he’ll have either used or planned to use. They’ll have to track them all down to make sure this never, ever, even remotely comes close to happening again.

Curiously, when Stiles arrives at the library, Lydia isn’t there. Instead Allison appears to be presiding, although the moment she hears that her father’s already left, she immediately loses focus. “I said I wanted to _talk_ to him,” she says, exasperated with more than a hint of worry in her voice. “He heard me, I know he did.” 

She takes a half-step towards the door, then stops herself and glances back at the book-laden table, clearly torn. Scott and Derek are sitting at it and Scott’s giving Allison a concerned look, lowering the book he’d been reading as if he’s thinking about getting up too. Derek’s eyeing Allison as well, but in an entirely different way: when he realizes Stiles has noticed, he gives Stiles a diffident shrug and then pointedly reaches for the sheet Allison had been writing on when Stiles had first come in.

“He might not be out of the last gate yet,” Stiles says, not unsympathetic to the problem of parents not minding you. He glances around the shelves, but doesn’t spot Lydia. Or Peter, actually.

“Oh, she went to order something up from the kitchen, since you and Dad were taking so long,” Allison says. She’s still distracted but she’s lived here long enough to read Stiles that much. “I’ll tell her you’re here, it’s on the way.”

Decided on going after her father. Stiles nods a thanks and moves over to let her pass, then looks around some more. “Where’s Peter?” he finally asks.

He’s peering into some shelves behind the reading desks, but Scott starts roughly enough to rattle a chair and Stiles swings back around—and glimpses Derek looking uncomfortable. His and Stiles’ conversation is still fresh enough that Stiles frowns at him, which just makes Derek look even more like he wishes he could hit something. Or somebody.

“Went to take out some more of his stitches. He said they were itching,” Scott volunteers, still looking after Allison, who’s hesitating by the door. “Now that you mention it, he’s been gone a while—he did look as if he’d healed, but I wonder if we should—”

“He’s probably just changing,” Derek mutters, slouching down behind a book. “He hates it when his clothes don’t fit, and he was wearing looser ones over the bandages. He’ll be back and if we all go, nobody’s going to read these.”

“Well, you stay put,” Stiles tells Scott, who’s stopped halfway out of his seat to give Derek a look that’s half-puzzled, half-annoyed. Scott does always look for the best in people, but that doesn’t mean he can’t spot a dig at himself. “You were in the middle of it, you keep going. I just got here, I’ll go see if Peter needs anything and I’ll get Lydia too.”

That last part’s to Allison, who flashes him a grateful smile before taking off as if she’s mounted up for a Hunt with a storming tailwind at her back. Scott smiles at Stiles too, though it’s more tentative. “You sure?” he says. “You know this stuff better than me.”

“It’s all right, I—I’m still thinking about the accounts anyway,” Stiles says, turning around. He almost pauses as Derek shifts abruptly, but the man doesn’t get up or anything, just keeps hiding behind the book, so he goes on back into the hall. “Could probably use a walk to clear my mind of that, and come into this fresh.”

Scott calls something supportive to his back and he raises his hand in acknowledgment, but he’s not really thinking about the other man, sad to say. Honestly, half his mind’s still on his father, and that’s probably why, when he figures the most likely place for Peter to go is back to the guest room they’ve put him and Derek up in, Stiles instead goes to the kitchen. When he’s worried about his father and doesn’t know what to do, he goes looking for Lydia.

He finds her. And Peter. In the kitchen.

It’s a testament to how much Stiles is _not_ paying attention that of the three of them, he’s the one who trips and nearly sends an entire platter of food crashing to the floor when he flails for balance. He yelps and claws up the side of the counter just in time to slap the platter back down flat, so just a gravy boat overturns. Winces at that, then pulls himself back onto his feet and turns around, offering them a sheepish smile.

Lydia just looks at him. Then Peter, who’s sitting on the edge of the table on the other side of the platter, tries to move and her head snaps around to him as her fingers visibly tighten over his thigh. “What did I say,” she says flatly, not making it a question.

Peter briefly looks as if he genuinely doesn’t know how to respond, and not just in terms of what to say, but also of what expression the situation demands. His eyes flick from Lydia to Stiles and back to Lydia, and then he settles on a polite nod as he leans back and lifts his leg into her hand.

He does have a shirt on, but his trousers are hanging off his ankles, since she’s busy wrapping up his thigh. It looks as if the stitches are out, but sometimes the flesh knits before it gains back all of its strength, so Stiles assumes the muscles still need the support of a bandage. “Chris went off to go talk Dad into just killing Deucalion,” Stiles says to Lydia.

“He is sensible like that,” Lydia says. She gives Peter’s shirt-tails, which are hanging down between his legs to give him some decency, a flick as they threaten to tangle up in the bandage, then ties that off. “When it comes to concepts, at least. Did he botch the explanation again?”

“I don’t think I’d call it botched,” Stiles says slowly. “A good point’s a good point, and he’s…you know he’s just like that. He doesn’t dress it up.”

She looks at him, then sniffs as if he’s just confirmed her worst opinion. Steps away from Peter, ignoring the intensely curious look he’s now giving both of them, and wipes her hands off on a rag and then comes over and takes the front of Stiles’ shirt in both hands. “Stiles,” she says, looking deeply and pointedly into his eyes. “Stiles. Your father will be fine. And if he’s not, I will personally find and list every haunted privy in this country for Chris to spiritually and literally muck out.”

“I love you,” Stiles blurts out.

Rolling her eyes at his grin, Lydia releases him. Her hand does give him a pat on the chest, but other than that, she’s brisk as she gathers up the various doctoring tools and then leaves the kitchen to dispose of them. Which leaves Stiles with Peter, who has levered himself off the table and is stooping to pull his trousers up, and who is eyeing Stiles very strangely for a man in that position.

“Remarkable,” Peter says. His gaze seems to stray after Lydia, but Stiles thinks he knows the man well enough now to know that that’s anything but accidental. Which is confirmed when Peter abruptly flicks it back to Stiles, shoulders shifting as if he might play it off as an embarrassing slip.

He doesn’t do that. Instead he straightens up and continues to consider Stiles, keenly observant but missing the usual charm. Not that he’s cool—on the contrary, he’s still appreciative, and if anything, it’s…it’s clearer, because he isn’t dressing it up with coy feints.

“If you mean her, yes, obviously,” Stiles finally says, getting uncomfortable with the continued silence.

“Obviously, indeed.” Peter smiles at Stiles, then dips his head as he finishes tucking his shirt-tails into his trousers. He reaches behind him for his belt, which is still on the table, without looking away from Stiles. “She would stand out in any setting, but as they say with jewels, it takes the proper setting to really bring out a gem’s brilliance. And you have to admit it’s as rare to find a flawless stone as it is to find someone so unfettered by social expectations, let alone _two_.”

His tone is odd. It sounds complimentary at first, but there’s a harsh thread running through it. Not just sarcasm, but something more complex, something that almost seems to cut back towards Peter. “Well, we’re not exactly regular society,” Stiles says after a moment.

“No,” Peter says, and that is undeniably curt. The man does immediately realize it and offer up another smile in apology, but he still looks as if he’s fighting down his natural reaction. 

He realizes that too and for a second anger flares up in his eyes. Then he grimaces and twists his head away. He almost turns from Stiles before abruptly catching himself, and then he gives Stiles a third, distinctly frustrated and unhappy smile. It’s the most unpolished Stiles has ever seen the man—in fact, Stiles would have to sit down and think to figure out if he’s _ever_ seen Peter look at odds with himself before this.

“I admire that,” Peter says suddenly. No flowery ornamentation, just a plain statement. “Even werewolves have their rules, and we’re all terrified of taking the tiniest steps outside of the boundaries that we set for ourselves.”

“I know there are a lot of traditions, but—but Lydia and I can’t be that strange to you. I mean, about not—not minding if we each have our interests,” Stiles says, startled. “You live in packs.”

“Oh, _packs_ ,” Peter says, with an eyeroll so savage that Stiles twitches and finds himself rubbing his hand against one leg, feeling the phantom cut of it. “Yes, of course. That much-vaunted idea that together, we’re stronger. Well, a good deal of the time it’s no freer than a prison, and I don’t really see how prioritizing a single person’s wishes results in greater strength. You only have to look to Blackwood for how that can go wrong—half his pack followed his idealistic vision of peace straight into the Argents’ hands, while the half that survived, didn’t do that for long.”

“Well, the one doesn’t immediately mean the other, I agree, but the key is in the execution anyway. It matters who you have, doesn’t it?” Stiles says.

Peter lets out a sharp laugh. “Exactly my point, Stiles.”

Which is true. But even though everything Peter’s saying has logic to it, and one that Stiles can’t really find holes in, it still rings…off. That’s the word: off. Not necessarily wrong, but something about it sits uneasily with Stiles.

“We’re not so different from any other person,” Peter goes on. He’s softer, more thoughtful, and at first it seems to be because he’s trying to erase how much he’s alarming Stiles. “People call us animals, say we’re the beasts civilization’s rejected, but are we really? Aren’t most people self-centered, short-sighted? Sticking together only out of fear? You know, it may look as if pack members share, but the vast majority of the time, it’s not true. They fight and squabble just as much as anyone else, and the strong end up with more than the weak.”

Peter takes a step forward as he speaks, his voice dropping lower and lower. It gets hard to hear him and Stiles leans in, then pulls back when he realizes what he’s doing. But by then Peter’s leaning towards him, so the amount of space between them remains the same: namely, nearly no space at all. The front of Peter’s shirt isn’t perfectly tucked, and what’s more, he has no vest or coat over it, so its folds are puffing slightly to brush up against Stiles, that’s how close they are.

“You almost are _forced_ to believe that respect is a child’s bedtime story, that the only thing that matters is what you’re able to take and hold for yourself,” he says. Looks so deeply into Stiles’ eyes that he seems to reach into them and set a hook into Stiles’ middle, and so it’s a surprise when Stiles jerks himself and finds Peter’s hands aren’t anywhere near him. In fact Peter’s folded them behind his back as he tips towards Stiles. “So that’s what I mean by remarkable, Stiles. Not just her, but you. You genuinely seem to think that what’s yours is hers, and vice versa. And neither of you hate the other for it.”

“Well, that’s how we are,” Stiles says. It suddenly strikes him how—how _condescending_ this all is, Peter trying to corner him as if it’s his responsibility to explain away the bad behavior of all of humankind. Look, he _does_ have duties, and they’re important to more than just him, but that’s not one of them. “I’m sorry if it’s not what you’re used—you know what? I’m not sorry. Not at all. That’s Lydia and me, and if it bothers you so much, then _maybe_ you should stop spending so much time with us.”

He pushes Peter. He’s annoyed and Peter’s leaning over so close and breathing on him, and he forgets for a moment that Peter’s still injured. Maybe. He’s not entirely convinced that when the man stumbles and grabs his arm, dragging him back as Peter falls against the table, Peter really needs the support. Which is why he gets his hands back up and yanks at Peter by a double fistful of shirt, and—well, he’s annoyed, of course he’s not thinking. Of course he doesn’t realize that just puts Peter back in his face, except even closer, breath pressing even more warmly and wetly on him, and now Peter’s laughing on top of everything.

“Stiles,” Peter says. “Stiles, _Stiles_ , I never said I didn’t _like_ that. In fact, I said I admired it.”

“Well, but you’re also acting as if it rubs you the wrong way,” Stiles snaps. He tries to let go of Peter’s shirt, but two of his fingers have gotten tangled in the laces and when he tugs at them, Peter takes it as a signal to push himself up against the table edge, angling himself even more towards Stiles. “From what I can tell, it’s almost like you’re—”

“Because I _am_ jealous,” Peter says, and just like that, he’s dead serious, all of the humor gone from his face. “I am. I’ve put up with so many flawed versions—even my own sister, though I’ll grant she tried more than most. So many times, and now you and her and it’s so natural, how you two do it. So natural it’s maddening, Stiles, maddening that for the first time in my life I can say I really do understand why someone might want to _let_ themselves be taken and—and—the pair of you are the most _damnable_ things.”

And now he’s angry. Not just frustrated, but truly angry, the kind of anger that reminds Stiles of the largest bells, with how it rings out of Peter as if the resonance means to travel down to the bottom of the ocean. Old, old anger. Not even remotely about Stiles.

Still, and especially because Stiles can see that, he doesn’t deserve to be the target. He opens his mouth to tell Peter so—and because he does that, instead of moving off the other man, when Peter hikes himself up against the table in outrage, their mouths run into each other.

They both stop. Peter’s angry enough that he’s panting a little, and Stiles can feel the last huff of the man’s breath bump the roof of his mouth. Stiles’ hands instinctively grab at Peter, and a few of his fingers slip through the snarled laces and run into warm flesh. Peter startles, or at least it feels like he does, his skin skittering against the backs of Stiles’ fingers, and then he slides up even farther.

He catches Stiles, whose mind is already stuttering at fully recognizing the situation, off-guard. Stiles pushes forward out of pure reflex and Peter grunts, a fresh gulp of wet, hot breath pressing its way from his mouth into Stiles’, and then there’s a grip at Stiles’ hip and Stiles is yanking at Peter’s shirt, _yanking_ it and Peter not only bows into it, his tongue licks over Stiles’ bottom lip as he goes down.

And suddenly both of them are shoving Peter into the table. Peter’s grip shifts roughly up and down Stiles’ hip, squeezing along the ridge of the bone before suddenly curling itself around the meatier part. Stiles hops a little, annoyed when Peter muffles a chuckle into his mouth. Annoyed but still very much kissing him, and no, all right, he doesn’t shake Peter’s hand off his ass. He’s too busy wrapping his fist up in Peter’s shirt and using that to drag the man’s tongue deeper into his mouth.

Peter’s laughter doesn’t last very long anyway. He’s just as urgent about the kiss as Stiles is, the noises rumbling out of him soon turning low and hungry, and when his bad leg suddenly seems to wobble under him, his reaction isn’t in the least comic: he snarls and claws at Stiles’ shoulder, so determined not to slip away that it shakes Stiles out of his haze. 

Stiles blinks hard. His grip on the other man slackens, and he remembers he’s supposed to be researching something. Right. Spiritually homicidal alpha’s scheme to upend the division of life and death.

Then he abruptly tips forward—Peter’s still pulling at him and since he’s not resisting, the man’s weight is hauling them both back into the table. Yelping, Stiles scrabbles, frees a hand and frantically shoots it around Peter to grab hold of the table. Their kiss finally breaks, but they’re still tightly tangled together, balance uncertain, swaying as Peter continues for a few more seconds to lip at Stiles’ mouth.

Even when Peter finally realizes that Stiles’ mind is no longer on that, the man’s reluctant. He keeps their foreheads pressed together, then twists so that his slides down to Stiles’ cheekbone when Stiles shifts back. His breathing is still heavy, coming in rough waves against Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles squirms loose his other hand from Peter’s shirt and it drops two inches before suddenly Peter’s fingers snap round it, hard and tight as any hunting trap.

Stiles hisses and Peter’s head comes up, and the way the man looks at him—it’s unnerving. Even for someone who’s grown up with windows into the Underworld as common as a sight as brocade curtains. It’s not only the intensity, but also the…the _desperation_ in it. Peter’s looking at him as if they’re parting for the very last time.

Which presupposes—and then Stiles doesn’t finish that thought because Peter jerks himself back. Releases Stiles’ hand and thigh and then leans so precipitously in the opposite direction that Stiles yelps again and snatches at him, thinking that Peter’s fainting.

He’s not, and by the time Stiles has realized so, has slackened his posture into something much closer to his customary sardonic humor. “I think I’ve overstepped myself,” he says, voice lightly lilting. “And I would apologize, but out of an abundance of caution going forward, I suppose I should first ask whether one is needed?”

“You—” Stiles starts heatedly, annoyed by how dismissive the man is. And how easily Peter’s reverted, when Stiles had, well, hadn’t planned that but had genuinely fallen into his reaction to it, had really _meant_ it.

But then something moves in Peter’s face. Or maybe it’s not even a real movement, not a muscle tic but just a change in air, and suddenly it’s clear how brittle Peter’s casualness is. Behind it Peter’s watching Stiles with the same long-boiling anger as before. And the same raw, suppressed _want_.

It doesn’t make sense. Stiles can see it and read it but he has no idea what it means. Nor does it seem as if Peter’s going to offer up any explanation, since the man just keeps standing there and looking at him with the same veneer of flippant enjoyment.

“We should go back to the library,” Stiles finally says instead, since they do, and at least he’s sure of that. “I want to get all the loose ends tied up by the time my father’s back. He’s going to be worn out and I just want this done.”

The muscle of Peter’s cheek flexes. For a second Peter looks as if his temper might snap—and then he merely smiles. “Of course,” he says, and then makes a graceful half-bow towards the door. “After you. We wouldn’t want to impose on your hospitality any longer than we have to.”

Stiles looks at Peter again. Takes a step towards the door, then glances at the man over one shoulder, but Peter’s still got the same smiling mask on. Which is really what’s wrong, Stiles thinks: he’d been starting to think that they’d been getting to know each other, but now Peter’s back to just acting slippery. It’s as if they’re meeting in the tavern all over again.

Something’s up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaning more into the versions of the Wild Hunt where it's less diabolical and more of a psychopomp. A lot of the common stories are all about how it's a harbinger of doom, or about how it's chasing down the living, but I find those versions a little bit boring, since they turn a pretty unique spectral event into something that just sounds like every other caution story to sinners ever. I find the hints that it's a remnant from pre-Christian worship a lot more interesting.
> 
> A privy is a fancy name for an outhouse. The, ah, composting kind.
> 
> Probably nobody's going to believe this, but this initially wasn't supposed to be this much of a slow burn. This was supposed to be "sexy period romp" and then Peter had to come in with his eternally multiplying agendas.


	14. Chapter 14

Later, when they break to get some rest, Stiles mentions it to Lydia, but she’s none the wiser. “He seemed entirely as expected when I was with him,” she says, hands slowing in her hair, which she’s braiding for bed. “That is, he was clearly trying to get at whether I cared if he seduced you, and while he was at it, whether I’d mind being seduced myself.”

“I was wondering why his trousers were off,” Stiles deadpans.

She acknowledges the point with a twitch of her lips, but still uses the ends of her hair to sweep a pincushion off the table at him. Stiles bats it away and then hides behind a divan, so Lydia, sighing, has to walk around it to continue the conversation. “I will say this, he seems to be having an unusual amount of difficulty in understanding that while I have an interest in ensuring your continued health, I am _not_ your keeper. Nor am I responsible for every bad idea you’ve ever had.”

“Well, it’s not exactly just my bad idea if you’re investigating size and quality before committing, is it?” Stiles asks. Still crouching behind the divan.

“That’s a _bad_ idea?” Lydia says.

Stiles makes a face at her. And then he sighs and just plops down on the rug, rubbing at the side of his face. “Not my best, I know. I’m tired, and these people are confusing. I just—every time I think that we’re getting somewhere, they go and act like—like they don’t _want_ to go anywhere. But then they take off their clothes! And save our lives! And honestly, am I wrong to be confused here?”

Lydia doesn’t immediately answer him. It’s an unnecessary question and she’s never been somebody for wasting her time, so he wasn’t really expecting her to. Though he is a little surprised when, instead of just finishing her nighttime routine while he pulls himself together, she goes, gets a dressing-gown on, and then comes back to sit down beside him.

“Derek’s been behaving oddly, too, if you’ve noticed,” she says. She glances at him, briefly looks exasperated since he obviously hasn’t, and then ties off her braid so she can elaborate for him. “He’s been irritated with Peter all night.”

“Aren’t they usually irritated with each other?” Stiles says.

This time Lydia’s less forgiving of his lack of observation, and gives his arm a prod. “No, _usually_ , Peter’s irritated with Derek. And Derek doesn’t enjoy it, but he doesn’t contest it the way he suddenly is now. Did you completely miss when Scott suggested that Allison ride out and check in on your father and hers in the morning, Peter suggested that she carry a banner announcing ourselves to Deucalion while she was at it, and Derek snapping that they weren’t _his_ father?”

Stiles frowns. He does actually remember that conversation, but he wouldn’t have said Derek had ‘snapped’ at anything. Derek had said that, but in more of a grumble. On the other hand, now that he thinks about it…“And Peter didn’t say anything after that, just started talking about the references to live oak trees in that one excerpt, right? He doesn’t really get diplomatic with Derek.”

Lydia nods. “And just now, when Scott brought up the hot water for tea, he mentioned he’d overheard them arguing in the kitchen.”

“When I was washing my face?” Stiles says. “What about?”

She looks at him.

Stiles lets his head thump back against the divan. “He didn’t at least stand there and see whether it was going to turn into a fight?”

“He said they heard him almost right away, and Peter came out and asked why he needed flour for tea, and he was so flustered that he apologized and left and _then_ realized they were actually in the room where we keep the sugar,” Lydia says, with a despairing shake of her head. Her hand sneaks across Stiles’ lap to loosely curl his wrist, thumb against his pulse as he slaps his palm over his face on Scott’s behalf. “By the time he went back, they of course were gone. In bed, apparently. We could go wake them—”

“But they’re going to deny everything, or come up with an acceptable excuse,” Stiles finishes. He rubs at his nose, then drags his fingers down it till its tip starts to stretch and hurt. Then he lets go. “Maybe they’d actually rather kill Deucalion themselves, now that it’s looking like that’s going to happen? Peter only was odd after I said that in front of him.”

“If that was it, wouldn’t he have been vying with Allison to be sent over?” Lydia says.

Stiles grimaces. “True.”

They sit in silence for a few seconds. “Perhaps they’re worried _because_ it’s so close to happening, and they’re so used to seeing Deucalion outsmart them,” Lydia suggests. “They’re afraid it’s all going to go wrong again, and leave them worse off than before.”

That seems more likely, especially with how Peter had been acting with Stiles. It’s also the explanation that’s most appealing, since if that’s the case, then Peter definitely cares beyond just getting his vendetta carried out by proxy and Stiles—well, at this point Stiles has to be honest and say he’s more invested than just liking the man. On the other hand, Stiles has already missed something somewhere, and he’s not going to do it again just because he prefers a different explanation. “But then why are he and Derek arguing? Unless…one of them thinks they should’ve kept us out of it?”

“I don’t think that’s it either,” Lydia says slowly, her head tilting to gently bump against Stiles’. “We’re back here, and I don’t know that they’re _so_ worried about your father.”

“Peter was a lot more upset than that. I mean, he’d think about how I’d take it, I think, but he wouldn’t have that strong of a reaction this early.” Then Stiles makes a face at himself. “I mean—”

“Oh, I agree, he likes you, it’s not merely your ego talking. Why else would I bother getting his trousers off?” Lydia says, dry with a hint of needling in her tone. “He wears them fitted enough that I had a fairly accurate assessment anyway.”

Stiles chokes a little, then pushes himself up so that he can thump at his own back. Lydia doesn’t help, but she does pull out a handkerchief and hold it over his mouth to keep the spittle from flying. “You know, Derek really doesn’t appreciate how lucky he is,” he croaks once he’s no longer in danger of suffocating himself. “’s not like I’m going to back him into a closet and demand he prove he meets certain quality standards.”

“That’s because you know I have a better eye than you do,” Lydia snorts. She tugs her braid over her shoulder and begins to finger the end. “You’d rather save up the blackmail for when you’re short of ideas for my birthday present, anyway.”

“That—because my first one hatched early! And we had that whole disaster with the Black Shuck puppies, I was short on time,” Stiles sputters. “I don’t do that as a matter of course! I spend a lot of time thinking up ideas for your presents!”

Lydia’s lips are twitching towards a smile, though she’s rolling her eyes. He makes his next face at her and she gives in and does smile, and for a moment he’s just…really glad he got up the courage to ask her, and make sure she was going to stay.

Then they both sigh, remembering what they were supposed to be figuring out. “Well, I’ll tell Erica when I see her, next time somebody catches them bickering—or you know, we could just get them to do it in front of u—”

“Stiles!” shouts Scott. In nearly the same second, somebody slams into the door so hard that, despite being made of planks as thick as a man’s forearm, it rattles in the frame. “Stiles! Are you in there? Lydia, we need to find—it’s his father!”

* * *

“That’s all I know. I’m not lying, I’m not being difficult, that’s it,” Jackson gasps. He gulps some water from his mug. He’s so rough about it that it slops over the rim, running down his chin and dripping onto his fingers, and it shows how genuinely upset he is that he doesn’t even notice that, let alone make one of his disgusted faces. “One second he was there, and the next he’s not. We went over the whole grove with our noses to the ground and his scent goes right up to the oak and nowhere else.”

“Did you bring a piece of the tree?” Lydia immediately snaps. Then she takes hold of Jackson’s arm, hauling him out of the chair even as he reaches towards his pocket. He yelps and twists and she ignores him as she pulls out a strip of bark. She starts to turn away, bending over it, then pivots back to reach for Stiles. “If he was pushed into the tree, he didn’t cross over, Stiles, it’s not—”

“I _know_ that,” Stiles says.

She goes quiet. Everybody’s…everyone is quiet. They’re just standing there and looking at him, and the sound of his own breath is so loud that he wants to wince at how it scrapes over his eardrums. Instead he holds onto the edge of the table and bends down to look Jackson in the eye.

“You said you saw my dad go after him,” he says.

Jackson’s eyes start to flick towards Lydia, then jolt back to Stiles as a low, groaning creak rumbles up through the flagstones, like the slow, approaching tramp of a distant army. He nods.

“And Deucalion dove into the oaks, and Dad went too,” Stiles goes on.

Nod. Then Jackson tries to straighten himself up. He doesn’t quite make it and the handle of the mug crumbles under his convulsive grip. “Stiles, look, Chris wasn’t caught up in it, and he said to tell you—”

“He’s all right?” Allison blurts out, coming through the door. Then she grimaces, even before Lydia glares at her. She scuffs one foot, then comes over, hay from the stables still sticking to her feet. “Stiles, Scott’s getting the horses tacked up, we can ride over there in less than an hour and when I find my dad—”

“He’s already working on it,” Jackson says sharply. He—doesn’t look any more sure of himself, or less nervous about Stiles, but there’s an obvious growing anxiety in him to say whatever it is he’s trying to find the words for. “That’s why he sent me back, Stiles, he says your dad’s still alive and he’s going to take care of it and he doesn’t want you to—”

“What?” Stiles says. “Want me to what?”

He doesn’t think his voice rises that much, but Jackson flinches and Allison, of all people, moves up beside him in sympathy. She puts her hand on the back of his chair and squares up to Stiles. “Listen, I know how you’ve got to be feeling right now, but if my father thought it wasn’t true—thought he couldn’t do something, then he’d have come back himself. So I don’t think we should—”

Stiles doesn’t even bother to hear the rest, just turns on his heel and stalks out into the stables. Allison calls out, and then her footsteps start after him, only to come to a rough crack of a halt when Lydia hisses that Chris _always_ thinks he can do something, doesn’t he?

They’re going to fight with each other, and that’s not productive and both of them could be doing other things, and Stiles just can’t look into that right now. His father’s out there, struggling to get out of whatever trap Deucalion threw him into, and he’s standing here and staring at the waning moon. Still bright, but it’s that false brightness, he thinks, the last flare before everything completely goes out. He can already see the shadows nibbling away at the edges.

“It’s not your fault,” says somebody from behind him.

“Scott,” Stile starts, and then he frowns, because that’s not Scott’s voice.

It’s Derek. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, with one hand still on the frame as if he thinks he might have to pull himself back in any second, and when Stiles looks over his shoulder, the man starts slightly before catching himself. He’s been wary of Stiles for one reason or the other since they met, but he’s never seemed so _strained_ about it, as if all the wires holding him have been wound to snapping point. And Peter’s just behind him, looking out at Stiles too, and not only is he letting Derek do the talking, he actually seems relieved to not have that duty.

“Every time we ever tried something, he always had something up his sleeve,” Derek adds after a second. “My older sister fell for—I almost did. He’s come up with things even Peter’s not sure how he—”

“He’s not getting away from the Hunt,” Stiles says. The house rumbles again and Derek steps back into the kitchen, looking about himself in alarm, that’s the only reason why Stiles notices. Because it makes complete sense to him, that everything connected to this, to them, to _him_ —that it won’t put up with this any longer. That’s what and who he is. He leans into his human side most of the time, but in the end, he’s more. And no one, especially a rogue alpha, is ever going to convince him otherwise. “He wants it, well, he’ll get it.”

Peter pricks up as if he’d been waiting to hear something like that, but oddly, the emotions on his face are mixed, and none of them are particularly close to happy, or even anticipatory. If anything, he almost looks as if he’d like to disagree with Stiles.

But before he or Derek can say anything, Allison suddenly pushes by them. Derek jerks his arm away, turning a scowl on her, but she ignores him and Lydia’s right on her heels, so Derek can’t mount any more of a protest than that. “Stiles, it’s a bad idea,” she says, as if trying to imitate her father’s bluntness. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with, and we don’t even know where Deucalion is right now, Jackson was just saying my dad sent Boyd off to follow him—”

“So we’ll fix that first,” Stiles snaps. He takes a step towards her, then falls back. The side of his face suddenly stings and then he realizes he’s reached up to scratch at it. “He’s _looking_ for us. He’s looking for a way to get at us! He wants to get at us! How hard can that be?”

“You can’t just open the gate and expect him to walk through it,” Lydia points out, overriding Allison’s next comment. She’s not as calm as she looks, standing there with her arms crossed firmly in front of her; her fingers are crumpling her sleeves where they’re gripping her elbows. But she agrees with him, that’s what matters. They can’t let this go, either of them.

“Well, so then we’ll _make_ him,” Stiles says. And then suddenly it’s together in his mind, every piece perfectly slotting into place like the wooden puzzle boxes his father used to carve for him when he was younger. When his mother was here, and looking after the Hunt with them, and everything—when everything was right. And since neither of them are here now, that’s now up to him and Lydia. “We’ll make him. I have a piece of his claw—it broke off and stuck in Peter’s ankle when they were fighting. We’ll use that, we’ll call him here, and then we’ll make him answer for what he’s done.”

“Wait. Wait, Stiles.” Scott’s finally come around from wherever he’d been in the stables, with a bridle still in one hand. It’s not clear how much he’s heard, but it is clear that he doesn’t like it. “Stiles, you can’t just—”

Allison doesn’t like it either. She’s smart enough to look at Lydia first, but not smart enough to understand why Lydia merely raises a brow at her. For a second she stares at Lydia, mouth gaping, and then she twists away and comes down the steps, shaking her head. “Stiles, you can’t. You can’t just—we should wait for my dad. Or go talk to him. I’ll go, I’ll get there and back, and I’ll make sure he tells us exactly what’s going on and how we’re getting your father back.”

“Or I could make Deucalion do it,” Stiles says, walking towards her. 

She starts to look relieved and he dodges around her and then keeps on going into the house; Lydia pivots as he approaches, briefly pausing so they’re side by side, and then starts towards the armory as he continues on through the kitchen.

“Damn it, Stiles—” Allison runs after him, and then seizes his arm when he won’t stop. “Stiles, just think for a second. You’re angry and scared about your father, I know that, but _think_. What’s this really going to do?”

“Get rid of him,” Stiles mutters, pulling at his arm. Then he whirls on her, hearing the breath she takes to start up again. “Well, what? Your dad didn’t kill him the first time, do you really expect me to wait around for him to get it right the second time? I can’t—it’s my _dad_ , and my mother already—she—”

He’s getting upset. His voice is cracking, and it’s annoying because for the spell he’s got in mind, he’s going to need to be able to finish lung-bustingly long chants without error. He shakes his head, then yanks his arm.

This time it comes free, but Allison doesn’t leave. She doesn’t have an argument to stand up to him, he can see that in her face, but she’s stubborn anyway. “Stiles.”

“Your mom wasn’t the same,” Scott says, running up. He overshoots them a little and twists around as his feet slide past, then catches one knee with his hand, panting, and looks up at Stiles. “That wasn’t the same, but what’s the same is you don’t need to do this. And—no, wait—you don’t need to, I’m not saying anything more than you don’t need to. He’ll get stopped anyway, it doesn’t have to be you. I just want—Stiles, this is what you want? This is _really_ what you want?”

Scott is probably the only one who could ask him that. At least, with a chance of getting an honest answer, and without Stiles trying to attack him. It wouldn’t even come up with Lydia because she wouldn’t think to ask him that—she’d just know what he’d want. But Scott’s been around for even longer than her, and aside from that, he’s never thought the same as Stiles. That’s not why they’re friends.

They’re friends because they don’t think the same way. But Scott’s never thought that the way Stiles thinks is horrible or frightening, even when he disagrees with Stiles. He just…he just asks because he wants to know Stiles won’t have any regrets later. Lydia wants Stiles to have what he wants, and Scott wants Stiles to be happy. He’s been like that ever since they found each other on Hunt night, and he was the lost cub shivering in the snow, but still wanted to know Stiles wasn’t going to be sick from him sneezing on Stiles.

So when he asks, Stiles listens. Not just hears, listens too, and then Stiles has to think. His head is still pounding with the rising of the Hunt’s spirit in him, but he thinks about it, and then he answers Scott.

“I want Dad back,” Stiles says. Pauses, seeing how Allison suddenly looks hopeful, as if she might have a crack to work into. She’s nice, but she’s still not Scott and in moments like this, it shows. “But I know I can’t—I _know_ I can’t help with that right now, all right? I know. That’s how it’s like with what happened to Mom, Scott. I can’t help Dad, like I couldn’t help her, and so—but I can stop him. I can stop him, and make sure while Dad and Chris are figuring things out, nothing else is going to happen. And if I can do that, then I’m _going_ to. All right?”

It still isn’t all right, says the look in Scott’s eyes, but he nods anyway. “I’ll go clear the crypts,” he says quietly.

Allison looks at him and Scott shakes his head at her without looking away from Stiles. Who should probably thank him, or at least nod back, but Stiles—he just stands there. Scott doesn’t mind—he never does—and after a moment, he takes Allison by the arm and pulls her away. 

Stiles stands there a little longer, watching them go. Then he turns around. Takes a deep breath, and heads up to his room to find that broken claw.

* * *

It’s a simple, short ritual, what Stiles and Lydia do with Deucalion’s claw fragment in the courtyard behind the stables. They don’t want very much, after all: just that Deucalion has an irresistible impulse to come to where they are. The knights are assembled for it, as well as the few other household members not out on search parties, and once the ritual is complete, they silently disperse. They’ll form up a line between one of the smaller back gates, which Scott and Allison have gone to open, and the courtyard, so when Deucalion arrives, there won’t be any time wasted on a tour of the grounds. Stiles just wants it all to be over with.

Still, Deucalion isn’t going to appear right away. “He might not even appear tonight,” Lydia says, brushing some dust off her skirts. “It may be a good idea to set up a tent, or at least a cot in one of the stalls.”

Stiles nods to acknowledge her comment, but stays squatting over the cooling ashes of the tiny fire in which they’ve just burned Deucalion’s claw. Lydia stands over him for a few seconds, doesn’t quite ask him a question, and then walks away, probably to see to that tent, and whatever she’s going to make Stiles eat for a meal. Stiles grimaces to himself, thinking he should be better to her. He will, later. Once he’s finished waiting.

“I’m aware that this is a terrible time to ask you to spare a moment,” Peter says, stepping out from behind a column. He waits under the covered portico that extends alongside one side of the stables, then sighs and comes out to where Stiles is. “I’ll ask anyway.”

“Well, I’m not doing anything else right now, so as long as you finish before he shows up,” Stiles mutters. He hooks the Hunt horn to his belt and flicks his fingers at the ashes, then shifts to sit down as the muscles in his back and thighs start to cramp up, as if they’d just been waiting for Peter’s interruption to weaken. “And aren’t going to try to talk me out of it.”

He’s expecting Peter to immediately deny that’s his intention. Instead Peter sucks his breath a little, as if the man’s debating how to respond. Stiles glances at him, then gets up enough to twist around and properly look at Peter, who’s continuing to hesitate, and visibly so.

Also, Peter has blood on his jaw. When he realizes Stiles has spotted it, he offers up a brittle, demurring smile and produces a handkerchief that he then uses to dab off the blood. “Minor disagreement with Derek. You’re no doubt familiar, with the number of werewolves in your household.”

“They usually save the real fighting for people who deserve it,” Stiles says slowly. It doesn’t look like it’d been a serious fight, since Peter’s clothes aren’t disheveled. Then again, he hasn’t really been paying attention to when Peter and Derek were and weren’t present in the last few hours; they hadn’t been getting in the way, which had been all that mattered. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing that really should trouble you,” Peter says, shrugging.

Stiles frowns, absently playing with the horn. “Yet you’re asking me for a moment about it.”

“I’m not asking for _that_ ,” Peter says sharply. He jerks his hand away from his face, then seems to realize how oddly he’s acting and tries to compose himself. He looks as if the smiles he’s trying out on Stiles have to be cut into his face. “Derek’s fine. He’s assisting your fiancée in the armory, as a matter of fact. He merely…he did have to see one of his sisters die at Blackwood’s hands, unfortunately, and the memory still troubles him. I’ve reassured him that Blackwood’s not going to win this time.”

“You don’t sound that convinced,” Stiles says.

Because Peter doesn’t, but still, it’s surprising how violently Peter reacts, almost hurling himself back onto the porch as if Stiles had yelled it at him. His foot even catches on the edge of the floor and he has to reach out to the nearest column to steady himself, which is about as graceless as Stiles has ever seen him.

For a moment they stare at each other, something very raw and close to fear on Peter’s face. Then he calms a little, but he’s no longer making even the slightest attempt to look as if he’s not upset. “Stiles, you need to understand that Blackwood left us with nothing,” he says in a low, slightly rushed voice. “Not even my sister’s claws—she was the last alpha, she had all of the pack’s knowledge in her. Laura—her daughter, Laura, she was an alpha too but she didn’t live long enough to properly inherit, or even be recognized by anyone who mattered. But as long as we had Talia’s claws, we at least could say that we still held something. Enough to keep the others at bay, keep them guessing about _what_ she knew, and what she had or hadn’t passed on.”

Peter’s tone more than anything tells Stiles that something isn’t right. Stiles starts to get up onto his feet, his hand instinctively going to the horn in case he needs to call the others in, and Peter suddenly lurches forward.

Stiles jumps back, then lunges for the man when he realizes Peter’s actually _falling_. He gets one hand onto Peter’s shoulder, but his grip slips because of how Peter’s twisting—the man is trying to pull away from him, even though it’s obvious now that Peter needs the help, with a dark stain running down the back of one thigh. His wounds have reopened, Stiles thinks at first, and then Peter abruptly rolls away from him, clothes splitting all over, and when the wolf rises out of the shreds, Stiles can see the stiff way one hindleg is bent.

Also, Peter has Stiles’ horn in his mouth. Peter backs up a few paces, still facing Stiles, then goes sideways one step. His head bobs uncertainly and then he throws it up, meets Stiles’ stunned gaze, and starts to turn away.

“Wai—hey! Hey, you can’t—” Stiles starts. Stupidly, just waving his arms as if Peter’s some stray dog who’s picked up a moneybag he carelessly dropped, rather than deliberately trying to steal the _horn_. But he just doesn’t understand why Peter would.

Then another wolf emerges from the courtyard shadows, and it starts to make a terrible kind of sense. Deucalion lifts himself up onto his hindlegs, muscles bulging grotesquely as his body shifts forms. His muzzle shrinks as his mouth opens in a self-satisfied smirk. Peter takes a reluctant step towards him and he laughs. Gives his head a casual toss, bones still cracking into place, and then smiles again at Stiles.

“I believe you asked to see me,” he says.

Stiles doesn’t look at Peter. Doesn’t ask what Deucalion’s done with his father either. There’s no time—it’s not the full moon and he’s on the ground anyway and where _is_ everyone? How has Deucalion simply walked onto the estate, without anyone seeing him?

There’s no time for that either. There’s barely enough time for Stiles to see the way the muscles shift under Deucalion’s fur, guess at the direction of the lunge, and throw himself back onto the porch to put a stone column between himself and the alpha.

Halfway there, he trips. It saves him from having his head crushed in by a rock—Deucalion’s shot past him to smash the column to pieces, which come raining down just inches short of Stiles. He wrenches himself backwards, scrabbling to get his footing, and Deucalion simply shoulders off the rocks that’ve fallen onto his back. Gore’s streaking down the alpha’s arms and legs and even head, but he’s baring his teeth at Stiles as if the injuries have just whetted his appetite.

Stiles grabs the smallest rock within reach and retreats with it to the next pillar, already breathing hard. He could shout—he can’t call nearly as far as he can with the horn, he’ll be limited to only who can hear, but Lydia would, at the least—but Lydia’s with Derek. She’ll look after herself, Stiles knows that, but the sudden realization still makes him gasp.

Not the crazed alpha swaggering towards him, though Deucalion obviously thinks so. “It’ll be a relief, I’d imagine,” he says. “Such a burden, responsibility, and not only for yourself but for all the ungrateful souls you’ve never even met. Not till they’ve come to their untimely ends, and expect _then_ that you’ll tend to—”

Frankly, Stiles isn’t even listening to the man. He’s busy trying to remember what else is nearby that he can use, where the pitchforks are, whether that broken mace is still in the smithy or if Lydia would’ve taken it inside with her—so honestly, he’s nearly forgotten Peter. And Deucalion’s in the same position, judging from how his step falters at Peter’s bark.

They both look over, Stiles after Deucalion’s head has swiveled around; Stiles also takes the opportunity to slide about the pillar so that he’s on the side nearest the stable door. Peter is still out in courtyard, twisting himself one last time before he rolls up into a crouch, fully human. He has the horn in one hand and as Deucalion snarls at him and holds out an impatient hand, he hefts it, not as if he means to toss it over, but as if to bring it to his lips.

“This was not the agreement,” Peter snaps. “The horn for my sister’s claws. That was what was promised.”

Deucalion pivots, monstrously tall, the blood matting his shoulders leaving smears against the wall a good foot higher than Stiles’ head would be. He looks bigger and stronger than he did the night of the Hunt, so much so that Stiles has to believe the whole thing must have been an act. The way he is now, the form he has, he looks as if he’d be able to smash through half the Hunt without catching a breath.

Peter snarls and drops back, clearly outmatched, but he stubbornly holds onto the horn. When Deucalion glances at it, he jerks it under him. Then pulls it out again, craning his head towards the mouthpiece. “There’s still time for them to catch you,” he says to Deucalion. Softer, a little wheedling. “You’ve nearly the whole month to wait out before you can make sure the Hunt’s yours, Blackwood. You’ll need to save yourself for that.”

Stiles can’t see Deucalion’s face, but he watches the flex of the man’s hands, fingers splaying wide, then curling up loosely so that their clawed tips just graze the palms. Deucalion’s head tilts. Then he lifts one hand. He sticks the thumb into his mouth, twists sharply, and then removes it to show a mauled but healing tip. His head turns and he spits something out into his other hand: a claw.

Deucalion repeats the process for all the claws of one hand, all the ones he took from Peter’s sister’s grave, Stiles guesses. Then, when he’s done, he gives the collection in his fist a diffident rub against a furred thigh before contemptuously tossing them at Peter. “Not that you’re any worthier of bearing them, Hale,” Deucalion growls.

Peter had started to rise, as if he wanted to try and catch some of the claws flying towards him, but at that he flattens back down. His lips peel back so far to bare his fangs that they whiten and almost disappear into the rest of his face, which is so twisted with hatred that it’s a wonder the flesh doesn’t tear away.

Then Peter starts back up, exclaiming in confusion and surprise. “Wait—” he says, as Deucalion turns back towards Stiles. “Wait, what are you—you don’t need to kill him! It’s the horn, whoever has the horn can call up the Hunt and that’s all you said you wanted—”

“Well, at the time, but I’ve thought it over, and why only call it up when it clearly needs a leader?” Deucalion snorts. He rolls his shoulders, then swings his arms wide like a wrestler. His claws have already grown back, looking blacker and longer and thicker than before. “Besides, Hale, he certainly wants to kill _me_. And unlike you, I take care of my loose ends—”

He’s going to leap. Stiles heaves the rock at Deucalion, as close to the man’s face as he can, and then jumps for the edge of the porch roof. It’s not the full moon, not even close, but the air is still better and if he can call out for a horse, and get up into the sky—he gets himself mostly over the edge and is yanking up his legs, trying to rattle the tiles as much as he can, when the whole roof suddenly tilts in a ringing crash.

Yelping, Stiles throws himself towards the far end. He can feel timbers giving way—the porch was a later addition, and it’s coming off the older, more solid stable—and he scrambles to get up towards the low stone rail that marks out the main stable roof. He gets one hand over it and then something falls out from under his knee, slewing him around.

Deucalion’s hooked over the edge, one arm outstretched, claws ready to stab into Stiles’ knee. His enraged, red eyes meet Stiles’—and then they suddenly go cloudy. The rest of Deucalion’s face shifts more human, and then Deucalion abruptly drops off with a surprised grunt.

Stiles finishes hauling himself onto the stable roof, then turns around to find a whirl of something throwing cobblestones and bloody fur about the courtyard. He can’t make out what’s happening, and then it breaks up into Deucalion, roaring, as he resumes his shift into his more powerful, sighted alpha form—and Peter, raked all over, obviously struggling as he slumps behind a pile of rubble. Peter roars back at Deucalion, defiant anyway. He pushes up as Deucalion charges at him, meaning to take it head-on even though that will kill him, Deucalion will kill him, there’s no way he can—

At the very last moment, so close that a spray of blood lashes the courtyard where Deucalion’s swipe caught his calf, Peter darts out of the way. He wrenches himself around, flings something up onto what’s left of the roof, and then sprints for the far side of the courtyard.

Tries to, anyway. He’s limping heavily and it’s an easy spring for Deucalion to catch up to the other man. In the meantime Stiles has slid down to the edge of the roof and snatched up what Peter threw to him: his horn. As Deucalion smashes down onto Peter, Stiles frantically knocks the dirt off the horn’s mouthpiece and then jerks it to his lips. Still, as he’s blowing, he knows the Hunt isn’t going to assemble in time. 

Deucalion’s howl abruptly jumps in pitch and Stiles chokes, then yanks the horn down, thinking he’s going to see Peter’s mauled body. But no. It’s not that. Peter’s lying off to the side and he looks terrible, but he’s still very much alive and growling as somebody else wrestles about with Deucalion. Derek.

Not doing much better than Peter, to be honest—the first time the two of them break apart, Derek’s already nursing a shattered-looking arm and there’s a cut across his forehead that says he’s lucky to still have both eyes. But Derek’s fresher, at least, and he’s forcing Deucalion away from the porch and Peter. He hunches himself up and Stiles thinks one more push and Deucalion will be outside of the courtyard, and—Deucalion twists himself faster than expected, so fast that Derek’s eyes are still widening in surprise when the other man cannons into him, dragging them both almost up to the porch again.

The whole stable shakes and Stiles drops to one knee, seizing what he can to keep from falling off the roof. A broken tile cuts into his hand and his blood drips down onto the werewolves fighting below, splattering across Derek’s face as Deucalion slams him onto his back and he stares up at Stiles who stares down at him. Deucalion draws back one hand, readying to slash Derek’s throat open, and Stiles can hear the knights now, can hear their hooves pounding towards them, but they won’t be here before Derek bleeds out.

Which is when the iron bolt drives straight through Deucalion.

It’s as thick as a man’s arm, designed to pierce fortress walls, and it’s amazing it doesn’t simply cut Deucalion in half. But no, when the bolt pins Deucalion to the courtyard grounds at least thirty yards way, his legs are still twitching. Stiles can see one hand wrapped around the bolt and flexing, that’s how strong the alpha is.

Down below, Derek staggers up onto his feet, one arm pressed across his bloody front. He reaches out for something and a chain’s tossed into his hand, and then Lydia comes onto the remains of the porch, the both of them desperately trying to haul up the scorpion for another shot as Deucalion continues to thrash and let out wet snarls, coming far too close to freeing himself.

“Wait,” Stiles says under his breath. He twists his hand around the horn, then drops over the edge of the roof and lands next to Lydia. She starts and drops her chain nearly on his foot, and the landing wasn’t good either, but Stiles ignores all of that as he listens to the drumming feet. “Wait, wait, _wait_.”

Lydia’s hand claps down onto his shoulder. She’s going to ask him, and then she doesn’t, because they’re near enough for her to hear, too.

It’s not the Hunt. The knights are coming, but they’re just cresting over the wood surrounding the castle, silhouettes still weaving between the treetops. It’s not Allison and Scott either, or Jackson—the first two just now storming through the courtyard gate, while the third has leaped up onto the top of the wall next to the gate. Their footsteps are too few for the great rush that Stiles is hearing.

They’re ghosts. Transparent, shimmering things, almost pretty. Delicate as gauze scarves thrown down in waves over the courtyard, looking as if the merest breath would rip them away. Except they don’t disappear, when Deucalion starts to scream. They just grow thicker and thicker, swirling tightly around the iron bolt, until he’s blotted out entirely and all the rest of them can see is that dull end sticking out and rocking back and forth, back and forth.

“Stiles,” Scott says. Of course he’s run right around the morass anyway, just so he can collapse at Stiles’ feet. He’s never let anything terrify him out of worrying for the people he cares about. “Stiles, are you all right? We heard—we heard—sorry, fast as we c—”

“Are they done?” Allison, with barely more breath, comes after Scott. She looks at Stiles and Lydia, visibly unnerved, and then she points out at where the ghosts are slowly drifting away from the bolt.

Lydia draws a breath, as if she means to answer that one, and Stiles puts his hand on her arm. She looks over, grateful and concerned, and then lets him pull them both out onto the courtyard to see.

Nothing is left around the bolt. Not even a stain. The cobblestones are as clean as if they’d been freshly scrubbed, and even the bolt is shining in the moonlight. One last spirit flutters by them, tugging at the edge of Lydia’s skirts, and Stiles starts to chant a laying spell, only to stop as the spirit circles back to the bolt, pulling itself up next to it and looking at them.

“Talia,” Lydia says lowly.

The woman looks at them. She’s beautiful, but it’s a still, cold beauty—not even dead, because her eyes are so empty that there isn’t even the memory of the life they once held. She only looks like the spirit who had confronted Peter before, but in this shell there isn’t anything left. When she dissolves away, it’s not like watching someone go: it’s only watching the dust scatter in the breeze.

Stiles blinks, then looks down. Then frowns and bends over to pick up the dark thing by his foot. Once he has it, he looks around and spots another, and another, and in a second he’s collected five werewolf claws.

“Hers,” he says to Lydia, who is looking over his shoulder. He looks up at her, sees her expression, and feels a coldness settle into his chest, even as she suddenly wraps her arms around his waist, trying to keep them both warm.

Derek and Peter are gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In keeping with the ye Olde English folklore influences, Black Shuck is one name for the demonic black dog of legend, while Stiles' father getting trapped in a tree is a nod to Merlin's apparent fate. In a few places in England where there used to be Roman army camps, there are also legends about people still being able to hear soldiers on the march.
> 
> That is a scorpion Lydia uses to shoot Deucalion. Collecting ancient Roman artifacts was a common hobby of the nobility, and I like the idea of her having the precursor to the British Museum's armory.


	15. Chapter 15

They could have tracked the two werewolves, if they’d started out immediately. With how badly the fight with Deucalion hurt them, there’s no way Derek and Peter could have completely obscured their trail. And the Hunt was up anyway. They could’ve found them.

They don’t. Stiles and Lydia aren’t even hurt, either of them—nothing worse than a few cuts and bruises. But Stiles doesn’t order it, and while Lydia always looks after the things he forgets or doesn’t want to do, she doesn’t either. There is a lot to clean up, but that’s not really why they hesitate.

And then morning dawns, and Stiles’ father rides in. Whole and alive and absolutely horrified to hear about what’s happened. “I wasn’t trapped,” he says, shaking his head. “Not even close. He just opened up one of the old doors into the hills, and I was running around the land of the Fae for a couple hours, chasing down his shadow—it was damn convincing, I’ll give him that. Didn’t realize it was an illusion till Chris caught up with me.”

“It was good work,” Chris says tightly. He looks over them till he finds Jackson, who seems torn between sneaking away and standing up to defend himself. “It did look like that. I should’ve figured it out faster.”

Stiles’ father takes a second out of his outrage to give Chris a disbelieving look. “You jumped in, that’s how you figured it out, and when you still thought it might be a door to the Under…never mind, we can sort that out later. Look, I’m all right, and—”

“We’re fine too,” Stiles says as his father turns back to him. He pauses, but Lydia takes his hand, letting him know she doesn’t mind him speaking for her on this, and then he does his best to smile reassuringly at the other man. “I mean, nobody died except Deucalion, and—and the Hunt’s still intact, and still has the same leaders it did this morning, and—and I guess in a month we’ll all ride out again like this never happened.”

“Right,” Stiles’ father says slowly. “Stiles, I’m—”

“And anyway, you have got to be exhausted,” Stiles goes on. He reaches out and tugs at a dirty streak on his father’s coat-sleeve. “You’ve been out all week, and we just were running around for a couple hours, and—”

“Stiles,” his father says.

“—and wow, Chris looks like he harrowed Hell looking for you, or something, I mean, doesn’t he smell a little like brimstone? And are those scorch marks on his coat?” Stiles says, jabbing at the other man. Who does not look like he’s interested in entertaining the change of subject, and who promptly tugs at his clothes, only to curse under his breath as a seam suddenly gives way, half the coat falling off him and revealing more rips in the shirt under it. “That, um, that does look pretty bad, maybe you should help him fix that—”

“It’s just the coat,” Chris mutters, and then he ducks away from Lydia, not quite in time to avoid her snagging the still-intact half of the coat. Which immediately gives up on staying intact, but with perfect timing, Chris grabs a horse-blanket and swirls it over himself as the coat falls off and onto the ground at their feet. “Good point, I’ll go get started on digging up the stones where Blackwood fell, since these are ruined anyway.”

Lydia makes an annoyed sound at his back, but Chris doesn’t let that sort of thing bother him and just continues to quickly remove any chance of using him as a distraction. Which, says the way Stiles’ father sighs, was probably not going to work anyway. “Stiles,” he says. He stops for a second, then steps forward and puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “Son. If you don’t want to talk about it now, that’s fine. It is. But I just want you to know that you can, all right?”

“Dad, there’s not really any—” Then Stiles bites his lip. Something bitter-tasting and frantic beats up against the backs of his teeth, hard enough that he winces, and then he drops his head and his father pulls him forward to let him lean it against the other man’s shoulder and whatever he’d been about to say just falls to ashes in his mouth.

“You can go rest, if you’d like,” his father is saying softly over his head. Not to him, to Lydia, who must have an odd expression because then his father shifts awkwardly. “If you want to help, sure, we’ll welcome it, but just taking a break doesn’t mean you’re not up to it. This isn’t one of those things—I just want you to kno—”

“I know, and I do. I know what you’re trying to say, that is,” Lydia says, sounding uncomfortable herself. Her hand slides from Stiles’ arm onto his back, and then, when Stiles finally pulls away from his face, she slumps against him, head tucking onto his shoulder. “I should make sure he goes to bed.”

“If you would, I’d appreciate it,” Stiles’ father says. His eyes flick to Stiles, and then, when Stiles doesn’t protest the double-teaming, he looks relieved. “Just…I wouldn’t think of yourselves as failing, all right? I just want to get that said tonight. This wasn’t a test you had to pass, either of you. It just…it happened, and you did what you thought was the right thing to do, and now we’ll deal with what’s left. All right?”

Lydia breathes in a little deeply, but when Stiles looks over, all she does is nod. Then she lets out that breath very slowly, sagging back against him. He wraps one arm about her shoulders, then straightens up to look his father in the eye. The other man seems about to tell Stiles to not do something—and then he just swallows it, and gives Stiles a tired smile.

“Go on,” he says. “We’ll talk more in the morning.”

Stiles and Lydia go to Stiles’ room. That’s Lydia’s decision, because when he holds the door for her, she pushes his hand away and then shuts it after them. He has to dig out one of her holiday presents early so she has something to wear to bed, but he doesn’t really mind and she seems fine with mixing up ad hoc cosmetics with his herbal kit for her nightly routine.

“So you’re not going back down,” Stiles says. He pulls off his trousers and boots, washes his face and hands next to her, and then just flops into a chair instead of going to find a proper night-shirt.

Lydia’s hand slows where it’s rubbing a towel across one cheek. Then she drops the towel entirely and turns around. “I didn’t know, Stiles. I listened to the other banshees and it was all about Deucalion, and I didn’t—I didn’t know.”

“Well, of course not, why would you—it wasn’t your fault. I mean, even Dad thinks so,” Stiles says, startled. Then suddenly angry, at Peter and Derek, for doing this to her. Making her look like that, nervous with her hands twisting in her lap. Sound like that, so soft and hollow. “It wasn’t, they just fooled us both and nobody’s blaming—it’s _not_ your fault. It’s not. Neither of us guessed right.”

“Emphasis on the _‘neither’_ , Stiles,” Lydia says pointedly, and for a moment she looks and sounds almost like herself.

She and Stiles look at each other. Stiles opens his mouth, closes it. Opens it again and raises one hand, and then just—lets that drop to his knee, as he shakes his head. He starts to chuckle; he can’t help it, it just slips out, and the more he tries to stop, the more he does it. Twists his head to the side, ducks his chin, but he keeps laughing, and finally he stops fighting it. Just drops his head so that he can puts his hands to either side of his neck for support.

And then Lydia touches him, soft fingertips grazing his cheeks, and suddenly the laughter is gone, and there’s just the cold simple truth left behind. Stiles presses his hands into his neck, then smooths them up the sides of his head before bringing them down to clasp over his nape. He looks up at Lydia and she’s got a wry, sad smile on his face, exactly like how he feels.

“I mean, I just—I really liked them,” he says to her. “I know I should’ve…but I really did. It wasn’t just that they were werewolves, you know. I liked _them_.”

“I know,” Lydia says. Her hands slide down till they’re cupping his chin instead of his cheeks, and then she heaves a sigh. “I liked them too. And you know, when I like somebody—”

Stiles nods. Props his elbows up on his knees as she pets the side of his forehead.

“He really did seem interested in the armory,” Lydia adds after a second. She tilts her head and her eyes briefly grow distant. “Could talk intelligently about effective range, and the pastries were perfect, too.”

“I’ve never actually met somebody who wanted to compare notes on anti-mildew spells for the library,” Stiles seconds. Then he snorts again. “I guess that by itself should’ve been a clue. Well, look…you and me, we’re still getting married, right?”

Lydia jerks at his chin. Not hard, but enough to make him look her directly in the eye. “Stiles,” she says. “Stiles. _Of course_ we are. Of all things—do you honestly think _I’m_ pretending?”

“What? No, I wasn’t saying—I just—you know, if any of this—if—” he tries to gesture for emphasis and forgets he’s supporting his head, and needs her grip to save him from falling forward off the chair “—just in case, you know, I don’t look like—”

“You look like the same man who proposed to me, with the same likelihood of being a complete idiot two seconds later,” she says tartly. She waits for him to push himself back on his seat, then lets go of his chin. But then, instead of sitting back in contempt, as she’d certainly have the right to do, she leans forward so that their heads on the same level. “Stiles. Forget everyone else, all right? _We’re_ getting married.”

He looks at her, then breaks into laughter one last time. It’s out of relief, and when instead of mocking him, she takes his hands and squeezes them, then lets him pull her over, he knows she understands.

“All right,” he says. “You’re right. You’re right, let’s get married.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just saying, I think a girl who knows how to mix up a Molotov cocktail would be able to connect with a guy who regularly uses the strategy of just trying to punch through something.


	16. Chapter 16

Two months later, just after the full moon, Stiles and Lydia exchange their vows.

It’s a big event. Really big. Stiles and his father are pretty much it, as far as their family goes, but when you’re involved in shepherding around lost souls, you do end up meeting a lot of people—any family old enough to own a castle has one rattling around—and they’re on good enough terms to get invited. Plus all of the werewolves know people, and Allison’s got a few friends in the surrounding villages. Even Chris asks for a few invites for some business connections. And _then_ there’s Lydia’s side, and as a banshee from one of the oldest banshee lines in Ireland, she has a pretty extensive family-and-friends network.

Not that she’s any more inclined to indulge their post-ceremony shenanigans than Stiles is. “We had to commandeer the _entire_ nunnery to finish the lace on my _veil_ in time,” she hisses as she stalks out of the hall, yanking up handfuls of her skirt as she goes. “My veil! As if I had it made _expressly_ so drunken fools could indulge their penchant for barbaric harassment.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, he’s still facedown in that pie you elbowed him into,” Stiles says, trying to look over his shoulder and also stuff her train under his arm so that she doesn’t trip. Then he frowns and squints back at the banqueting horde. “Wait, isn’t that your second cousin? What if he suffocates?”

“He’s part-brownie, that should be well within his powers. And if it isn’t, I think that branch of the family owes my mother some horses anyway,” Lydia sniffs. Then she suddenly turns, right at the foot of the stairs, so that her train drags Stiles right into her. She puts her hands on his arms, but she’s more steadying him than herself. “Besides, did you _really_ want to stay any longer?”

She just…can do that. Turn in an instant from withering sarcasm to the kind of sweet edge that, well, that still cuts, but it just seems so _enticing_ , the way it does it.

Stiles swallows hard and reminds himself not to drop the train, since the fur edging it took him, Allison, and Scott the better part of the summer to hunt up enough pelts. “Well, now that I think of it, no. Guess not.”

Lydia rolls her eyes. A little. And then takes hold of his arm and drags him up the stairs.

By the first landing, she’s gotten the veil off. By the second, she’s detached the train, and Stiles is busy trying to skin off his very annoyingly fashionably tight overcoat. By the third, they—stop for a second, because Lydia has a lot of jewelry and actually, Stiles does too, and getting that unpinned without pricking somebody is worth some attention. And all right, also because Lydia decided she wanted a kiss and Stiles wasn’t going to decline.

More than a little breathless, the two of them resume their hurry towards the bedroom. Stiles accidentally drops a brooch and curses, but when he bends over to retrieve it, Lydia hauls him away. He yelps and loses an armful of her train too, and then just gives up and goes with it. He can see Scott’s head cresting over the stairs anyway—Stiles waves to show the other man he’s fine, then flails towards the dropped items. Scott raises his arm to acknowledge it, but then Stiles misses whatever Scott tries to say because Lydia’s shoved him up against the bedroom door.

Stiles gets himself a good grip on Lydia’s hip and then does his best to keep up with her mouth, despite rapidly-melting knees. He thinks he doesn’t come off too badly, given how flushed she is when she pulls back a second later. “Your bedroom?” he says.

“I have _no_ confidence you remembered to clean up your rug, after all that fuss this morning,” Lydia says, panting, mocking, and then, just as he tries to correct the record on _who_ temporarily lost the ring, she suddenly presses up against him. “Also, it’s closer.”

Stiles shrugs. “Makes sen— _ow_ ,” he hisses, twisting sharply. “Sorry, corset. Hey, is that the stiletto I gave you?”

Lydia frowns. Then she reaches around and adjusts her bodice so that hard thing in Stiles’ ribs slides away. “I think I need to fix the sheath, it shouldn’t twist like that.”

“Want me to take a look?” Stiles says, and then he makes a face. “I mean, in a completely non—”

“Oh, honestly, we’re _married_ now, I’d hope you want to get this thing off me,” Lydia says, pushing an arm past him to get the door.

Somewhere in the middle of that, they start kissing again. And Stiles’ hand gets up under Lydia’s skirt, which is actually not where it needs to be, at least if that corset is coming off, but she’s pressed up against him tightly enough that he can feel the soft warmth of her breasts plumping over her bodice and into where she’s yanking away his cravat, and right then somebody swears loudly.

Stiles jumps, treads on the hem of Lydia’s skirt, and slides backwards into—well, fortunately, a chair is mostly there, especially since he takes Lydia with him. But having the weight of her and her corset come down on his ribs is…not ideal, to say the least, and so it’s a second before his vision clears enough for him to see.

Well.

“Derek and Peter are tied to your bed,” Stiles says. He blinks. “I mean, I think. Or else Derek’s arms are really stuck in the headboard.”

Lydia pushes her head up, stares at Stiles, and then twists herself around. Then she stares at the bed. “I did _not_ do that,” she announces.

“Nah, we did.” Erica hangs her grinning head in from the hall, while people scuffle and mutter behind her. Then Scott’s somewhat-concerned face pops over her shoulder, and stays there, even though she keeps trying to elbow him back and at least one other person is helping her. “Listen, for the record? We _did_ send back Alpha Hale’s claws, just like you wanted. But there was no way in any circle of Hell that that was really going to give you closure—”

“I told them not to hurt anybody!” Scott calls. “I wanted to just sit down and talk—”

“Well, sure, if those idiots didn’t just run on sight, and when they didn’t even go all the way back home,” Erica says, rolling her eyes. “They were just hanging around that stupid tavern, just out of range of all of Chris’ beacons, spying on all the wedding traffic with these little mopey faces. It was the most incredibly depressing thing I’ve seen, aside from _your_ mopey faces, and anyway, have a _great_ wedding night, from the pack! See you in the morning!”

“Lydia! Lydia, they really didn’t struggle that much—” Scott’s still trying to yell. His hand shoves past Erica’s head, hitting the door right when she almost has it shut. “I think they’re sorry, you just should—don’t do anything you’re going to reg—ow, Erica!”

“Did she bite him?” Lydia says, looking at Stiles.

Stiles nods. “Chewing on his wrist. Listen, it’s not that Scott thinks you’re heartless…”

“It’s just I am _far_ more vengeful than you and we’re not killing anybody, Scott!” Lydia says, rolling her eyes and pushing up to call over her shoulder. “Does anyone actually think I want to spend tonight on body disposal?”

“I hope not, because we’re all going back down and drinking!” shouts Isaac. He and Boyd drop their arms over Scott’s shoulders and together, haul the man out of the way long enough for the door to shut.

Allison’s annoyed voice rises up at the very end, but Scott seemed reassured. Kind of. He wasn’t struggling as much as he could’ve, anyway, and the door doesn’t reopen so Stiles figures any objections from that corner can wait.

“Well?” Lydia says, twisting herself in Stiles’ lap to face the other potential corner of protests.

Derek had been wrenching at his arms, but he stopped while they were talking to Erica and Scott, and now he and Peter are just sitting there. They’re mostly dressed—no shoes or coats, and their clothes are disheveled enough that somebody’s obviously disarmed them, but they would pass the decency test in most situations. Both of them have their arms pinned behind them, and as Stiles hikes himself up for a better look, Peter shifts his feet and a glint of metal shows around his ankles. Their expressions are blank with a strong hint of wariness.

That’s an odd look on Peter, with how familiarly he’d always insisted on acting before, but surprisingly, it’s more Derek who seems ill-suited to it. Or maybe not—Derek had been the one of the pair who’d tried the least to hide his emotions, even if he’d done an excellent job of hiding his actual motivations. So looking at him now, with almost nothing in his eyes instead of the expected resentment or anxiety…it cools Stiles’ ardor, at the least.

Lydia clearly feels the same; when she catches hold of Stiles’ hand as she gets up, she does it not out of coyness, but so they present a united front as they stroll over to the bed. Also, admittedly, it helps Stiles hide his fidgeting fingers in her skirts.

“So,” he says, looking over the other two men. “Mopey faces?”

Peter draws himself up against the headboard, as if about to put on some bluster, or charm, or anything besides the depressed expression that suddenly comes across his face. “Well, more or less,” he says, with a small, decidedly wistful twist to his mouth. “I’ll admit even I was at a loss about what else to do, after nearly getting you killed. In a very much premeditated, conscious and sane fashion.”

Stiles blinks hard, then looks over at Lydia, who folds her free arm across herself, studying Peter. “Preemptively blaming yourself is one possible approach,” she says slowly.

“Whatever you like,” Peter sighs, his shoulders and gaze dropping. He’s moving his feet too, so at first it seems as if he might just be trying to work out a cramp, but then he stops shifting and he’s still staring at the bed. “We could try and defend ourselves if you’d prefer that instead, but—”

“It doesn’t really make a difference,” Derek says, slumped himself. His eyes keep almost looking over at them, and then he’ll twist his head to stare at his chained feet instead. “Right? We did what we did.”

“You did, but—” Then Stiles looks at Lydia, but incredibly, she seems as uncertain as he is about what to do with this. At least, that’s how he reads the way she just keeps staring at Peter, as if she’s trying to will him into behaving differently. “Look, just—why? I mean, we’ve got some guesses but—why?”

“He had my mother’s claws and we needed them back,” Derek says. He’s scowling, a little confused by why Stiles is asking, and for a second he almost seems himself too. But then he grimaces and drops his head back against the headboard, and the dejected slouch takes him back into unfamiliar territory. “It wasn’t just that she knew things, it was that she was the last alpha, and as long as he had them, we couldn’t have ever gotten a new Hale alpha—but we could’ve run away. We did without an alpha this long, we didn’t need one.”

Peter shrugs, looking equally downtrodden. “I suppose there was some family pride involved, that no matter what, Blackwood wouldn’t be the one with our line’s destiny in his hands…but we could have handled it different—”

Stiles clears his throat, then does it again because the two of them are so deep in their depression that they actually seem to have semi-forgotten he’s there. Peter starts, anyway, his head coming up, and before he can go back to staring at the bedcovers, Stiles moves to lean forward over the edge of the bed. “Um, I actually…I meant why’d you change your mind? I mean, Deucalion almost killed you—both of you. And I am guessing that that wasn’t part of the plan…unless you’re a lot stranger than I was thinking…”

A flicker of amusement passes over Peter’s face, but after it comes a disappointed expression, and so viciously does it eat up all the humor that for a moment, Stiles thinks Peter’s grimacing in _physical_ pain. “Stiles, Blackwood was completely out of his mind and the moment we got Talia’s claws back, we were going to go right back to trying to kill him,” he says almost incredulously. “At _no_ point were we working with him because we wanted him to succeed, and with you—you and your lovely fiancée—”

“Wife,” Lydia corrects.

Peter nods distractedly, clearly far too caught up in the torrent of words to care about being interrupted. “Good God, if we had had any sense, we would’ve just thrown in with you from the start,” he goes on. “You’re young, beautiful, powerful, well-resourced, _and_ you seemed open to…to possibly everything, rather than our having to pick and choose what we wanted the most—”

“We’re idiots,” Derek says.

“Well, _why_?” Lydia asks.

Derek tilts his head. “Because—I guess because we didn’t think you’d actually want a couple omegas, especially if they were so desperate they were working with somebody like Deucalion?”

“But—that doesn’t really make sense. If you were only doing it because you were desperate, then that doesn’t really reflect who you are most of the time,” Stiles points out.

“Well, hence the stupidity,” Peter sighs. “It’s inexcusable.”

“I have to agree,” Lydia says slowly. She lets go of Stiles’ hand, but only so she can hold back her hair, which is falling out of its elaborate coiffure, as she looks at him.

He thinks for a moment, then nods. She starts to smile at him, then pivots about to face him, her hands landing on his chest and then sliding up to his shoulders. Stiles grins back, stepping in close enough to her that he can feel her breath on his throat, and then he looks over her shoulder at Derek and Peter.

“So obviously, you’re not going to do it again,” he says. Peter’s already looking at him but it takes a few seconds for complete comprehension to filter into the man’s eyes, and even then, Peter’s a little incredulous; Derek, on the other hand, keeps staring at the ceiling till Stiles knees the bed. “Right?”

Derek stares at him. Peter opens his mouth, lets it hang wordlessly, and then closes it, blinking rapidly.

“Are you getting it unlaced or not?” Lydia says, with a slight prod at Stiles’ belly. When he looks at her, she smiles winningly and resumes where she’d left off with pulling open his collar. Only now, as he leans over her and tries to deal with the corset, she starts kissing up the side of his neck. “I know you know how, honestly—”

“I _know_ , but this one’s all—fancy—” Stiles mutters, already swallowing back groans. He gets the back of her dress undone, but then, instead of easily slipping off her hips, part of it snags on the corset, getting in the way as he tries to pick at the knots. “Plus—don’t want to rip—”

Lydia shoves him onto the bed, back-first. “Stiles, honestly,” she sniffs, as she expertly slips out of the dress and a fair number of the undergarments, too, and then climbs up to straddle him. “It’ll have to be retailored anyway, it doesn’t matter so long as where you rip leaves the trimmings intact—”

He flips her over and then, admittedly, gloats a little bit as she pants, wildness starting to creep in behind that polished gaze. “All right, sorry, I can’t remember what’s the silhouette that’s fashionable this year, I just wanted to…ah! I _knew_ this had to be there somewhere.”

Corsets are supportive, not strangling, per Lydia, and so she always has hers engineered with a quick-release, just in case she needs the extra lung room. Stiles gets the vents opened up and then starts pushing the corset up. And then he frowns and reverses direction, because while Lydia’s got the room to wiggle around in there now, the corset still isn’t loosened enough to push past her breasts. Which are…are really spectacular, and spilling out, and look, if she’s going to grab his head and push it down like that, he obviously should nuzzle.

“You were staring at them hard enough,” Lydia mutters, though her hand is stroking over and over the back of his head. Then it settles on his nape, curling the thumb behind his ear as he massages her nipple with his tongue. Her breath hitches and then she arches up, legs closing around his hips as her free hand pushes roughly at the layers of clothes still between them. “ _Why_ are your breeches still on?”

“No idea, it’s not like they’re harder than this to get off,” Stiles mumbles. Then he pushes himself up, teasing her with little tweaks at her corset.

Lydia’s eyes narrow. Stiles ducks, but since she’s twisting him over by the hips, that doesn’t do the least thing to save him. She laughs at whatever expression he’s making, but unlike him, doesn’t let her glee take up all his attention. By the time she’s finished her laugh, she’s rid herself of her corset, dealt with his belt, and is well on her way to removing his breeches, too. “ _Do_ keep up, would you?” she says, sweetly, wrapping her fingers around his cock.

“Oh, absolutely, undivided—attention right here,” Stiles says. His voice cracks in the middle, but honestly, he’s too busy trying to fluff up her petticoats to really notice, let alone care. His pride seems like a low priority, given that he finally has his hands on her thighs and they’re warm and smooth and before he knows it, his palms have slid all the way up to soft buttocks.

Lydia hitches sharply, one of her hands sliding from his breeches to splay over his belly. She dips a few inches and her hair drops over one shoulder, a copper curtain for the white breasts swaying over Stiles now. He swallows hard, trying to wet a suddenly-parched throat. His hands are shaky and he presses them against her hips to try and make them stop, and accidentally catches her off-balance. 

Wide-eyed, Lydia slides forward on her knees. Then grabs Stiles’ shoulder, but by then she’s already sunk enough that his prick is nestling up between her legs and damp hair is grazing its head. Stiles sucks his breath and watches as Lydia bites her lip, then lets it out from between her teeth, reddened and swelling.

“Um,” he says. He inhales again as Lydia shifts and the tops of her thighs squeeze at his cock, tantalizing and ticklish and a thousand other things, all of them incredibly—he starts to tug her down, then stops himself. “So—”

“Well,” Lydia gasps, still shaky herself. But she makes up her mind faster than him—she usually does—and even as she’s gasping, her hands are planting themselves more firmly and she’s lifting her hips.

She has that determined set to her jaw, but when she moves it pushes Stiles’ cock sideways along one of her thighs and he belatedly realizes that that’s never going to work. “Oh, wait—” he hisses, trying to get his hand around to hold his cock still. “Um, no, I think—”

The petticoat gets in the way. Lydia pushes herself down and Stiles is still shoving away folds of it, and she sort of sits on his wrist. Which is clearly not comfortable, and he’s apologizing even as she hastily reverses himself.

“Sorry, sorry, let me just—” he mutters, finally getting his prick in hand. “Maybe now—”

Lydia shoves herself down again. Stiles starts to yelp again, thinking his hand’s going to get—pushed in too, or something, and no, it doesn’t work like that and _wow_ does it not work like that. His fingers stay out of her, just squished in between their thighs as she rocks herself down, and they’d probably hurt if everything else didn’t feel so _good_.

“Good?” Lydia asks.

Stiles suddenly realizes he’s been rambling to himself again. He tries to shake himself out of it, almost blacks out instead as their bodies move together in the absolute best, completely beyond expectations way, and—somehow, it gets through to him that Lydia’s not quite giving off the same enthusiasm. He blinks up at her. “No?”

She’s…she’s not _wincing_ , or anything like that, thankfully—some books and people make it sound like a bloodbath for the poor woman—but she isn’t ecstatic either. Actually, she looks puzzled. “I’m not sure,” she says, frowning. She rocks against Stiles, pauses, and then shakes her head. Then sighs as Stiles needs a moment to stop moaning. “It’s…it’s not—”

And yes, it’s good, but that disappointed tone in Lydia’s voice is enough to lower it from _good_. Not quite enough to get Stiles’ mind working up to normal speed, but he manages to remember something from his research. “Maybe it’s the angle? What if I—um, you hold onto that, and I’ll just…”

Lydia obligingly clutches at his shoulders and Stiles starts to sit up, but he’s barely gotten up on his elbow before he can tell that’s not helping. He frowns too and moves to lift her off so he can—right, his hand is down there and _of course_. “I’m an _idiot_ ,” he mutters, worming that hand around and between them and following the trail of her hair down till his fingertips just brush—

Her eyes go wide again. She stiffens and for a second Stiles thinks he’s completely misremembered those references. And then Lydia sags down, moaning so low in her throat that at first he doesn’t think it’s from her. It doesn’t sound like her, that guttural, earthy sound. But she’s rocking against him again, not experimentally but purposefully, urgently, and then she leans over and seizes his head between her hands and just kisses the hell out of him.

Stiles jerks his hips up, freezes, and then Lydia snorts into his mouth. “Mmm, no, _yes_ ,” she purrs, wrapping one arm under the back of his head. “Yes, _that_.”

“Mmmmright,” Stiles mumbles back, pushing up again. Harder, and deeper, and just in case he rubs his fingers into her folds at the same time.

Whether it’s that or the angle, it’s working, because Lydia arches and lets out that moan again. She’s rolling her hips with him now, roughly enough that her arm slips out from under her. She seems to go sideways and Stiles instinctively rolls that way, not wanting them to break apart—though they probably weren’t going to. But neither of them really is paying much attention to cause-and-effect right now, and they just twist together, licking and sucking and moving against each other. Her legs wind around him and then her hand finds its way down his wrist, both of them working their fingers in and around the join of their bodies.

Stiles tries to hold back. His heartbeat is pounding down his skull, and all he can hear is the rasp of his own breath, and he can’t see anything, he’s just too close to her but he can smell her, smell her sweetness and his mouth is full of the taste of hers, and he has no idea how close she is. But he wants to wait for her, in case she’s not there yet. He’s teetering on the edge of a cliff and for the past two years they’ve jumped off every ledge hand-in-hand, and this one—this one isn’t any different and he wants to—he wants—

“ _Ah_ ,” Lydia says, and that small, low noise, barely more than a puff, it hits Stiles as hard as a battering ram in the chest.

His fingers twisting with hers, he goes down. And the whole way, he still feels her hand.

He doesn’t pass out. He doesn’t think it has anything to do with it not being quite that good or anything like that, not when he just seems to be floating for an eternity in the most wonderful place in the world. It’s just some things are beyond the realm of ordinary human senses, and this is one of them. It’s so good that his body just doesn’t know what to do.

“Right?” Stiles says, when he’s come down enough to be capable of speech again. “I mean, it was, right?”

Lydia doesn’t arch a brow, or thin her lips, or do anything to signal exasperation. She just sprawls on top of him, barely holding her head up, a sweaty lock of hair straggling down the side of her face, and smiles. “Yes.”

“A lot better than just solo practice,” Stiles says, absently patting her shoulder. He moves his head, pillowing it more comfortably on her arm, and then he frowns and lifts it as he hears something.

Derek and Peter are staring at them. Well, last Stiles checked, they’d been staring, so he supposes that’s not entirely unexpected. But it’s definitely a different kind of stare than before. For one, it looks as if they might have been fighting their chains again, because Derek’s shirt is twisted down so that one shoulder is sticking out of the collar, while Peter has part of the bedsheet twisted up in his ankles. Two, they’re really flushed—really flushed, and Derek’s panting as if he’s been running a race rather than being tied to a bed. Three, they both look as if somebody’s repeatedly slapped them in the face. Their eyes have that dazed air to them.

“ _Practice_?” Derek spits out, incredulous.

Lydia glances at Stiles, then hikes herself up to face him, casually leaning on one arm as her breasts plump out, completely free of her remaining clothing. “Well, it’s one thing to want to respect tradition, entirely another to go in completely unprepared for one of the most consequential first experiences of your life. And book research simply doesn’t cut it.”

Peter seems to be having trouble working his voice. He makes some odd, small, twisty noises before he finally manages to get out a few words, and even then he sounds strangled. “You…neither of you…”

“If she was going to wait, well, I wasn’t going to just leave it all to her,” Stiles says. “I mean, sure, that makes the research harder in theory, but I actually think it made us look at more interesting—”

“Techniques, and tools, and thoughts,” Lydia purrs. She puts her hand down, then lifts herself off Stiles. A tiny crease of pain crosses her brow and Stiles reaches up to steady her, but she shakes him off and then shifts herself around to smile at the other two men. “No reason why you can’t gain _that_ experience, except for smallmindedness.”

“Which, maybe you’ve noticed, neither of us really do,” Stiles says, pushing himself up. His shirt flaps up and he pulls it down, then shrugs and takes it completely off; it’s sweat-soaked anyway and annoyed. He tosses it off the side of the bed, then looks up. “So, where were—right. You were sorry?”

Peter moves his mouth a few times. He still seems to be having a hard time understanding exactly what’s going on, but to his credit, he hasn’t given up yet. “Exceedingly.”

“Well, it really was a shame,” Lydia says. She pauses, tilting her head, and then moves up the bed till she can kneel in between Peter and Derek, close enough so that Derek has to stiffen his legs to keep his knee from touching her. “Because we did like you quite a lot.”

Stiles is slower because he’s kicking off his breeches, but once those are gone, he comes up behind Lydia and puts his chin on her shoulder. “Honestly we still like you. And I think everybody’s going to call us crazy here, but the way I look at it, we could not do something we’d want to, and be a little less happy, or we could do something we want to, and be happier. I mean, it’s not like we’re miserable right now, but—”

“We could be happier,” Lydia says. She waits long enough that Derek and Peter work through their disbelief, slowly move into hopeful, and then start to look disbelieving again. “But. Next time? I will kill you _myself_.”

“And I’ll ask Mom where she can stick you after you cross over,” Stiles chimes in.

“That—” Peter catches himself. It’s a sign of how truly thrown he is that he’s actually blurting something out; before, even at his most upset, he’d always acted as if he knew what he was going to say, even if he wasn’t composed when he was saying it. “Yes. That—that seems quite fair.”

Lydia studies Peter, brushing the hair back from her face. Stiles takes her hand as it slides behind her ear and she looks back at him. Then, smiling, she turns to face Peter again. “Well, now that we have that settled, what on _earth_ did they do? Wait—wait, are these—did they take _my_ fae-forged—”

She leans over Peter, reaching around and peering at whatever’s holding him to the headboard. Then leans back to share her outrage with Stiles, only before she can turn completely around, Peter’s surged up and caught her mouth with his, and ardently enough that Lydia, eyes round, falls against him with a surprised sound.

Stiles had gone over to look at Derek and he’d been digging a pillow out of the way. He stuffs that under his knee and turns at her exclamation, and gets just a glimpse at her when suddenly there’s a hot mouth sucking at his throat, stubble rasping at his jaw, and it’s as if Derek has a direct line to his hamstrings because his legs just _collapse_. He’s got one hand on Derek’s arm and he clutches at it, trying to drag himself up. Then grabs Derek’s shoulder and hauls on it, and—right, well, that would put him in a good position for Derek to kiss him. And Derek’s good at that.

Something flails at Stiles’ arm. He’s busy twisting his fingers in Derek’s hair to assist the man in exploring the back of his throat, but then it flails again. Stiles pulls away to be annoyed, realizes he actually really needed the air, and barely avoids collapse by—all right, he’s straddling Derek. And that flailing thing, that’s Lydia poking something at him. A key. Right. That’d be useful.

Stiles snags it, and just in time too, since there’s a curving blur of motion and then Lydia is flat on her back against the bed, her hair tossed out in a wild scarlet riot round her head, fingers locked in Peter’s hair as he noses deeply between her legs. His wrists are still bound behind his back, but they’re trailing a chain that runs slackly to the headboard.

“It’s not—” Lydia gasps, her hips already riding up into Peter’s face. “It got the chain loose but the man—manacles—idiots—it’s the wrong—”

“Oh, no problem, I’ll go get your lockpicks,” Stiles says. He starts to move off Derek, then stops and looks down at him. “Or wait, are you still—”

Derek is not, and Derek proves it by abruptly lifting off the headboard, twisting himself around, and sliding off the bed to stand behind it. While with his hands still bound behind his back and carrying Stiles, who had no idea what to do except make startled noises and cling tight to his shoulders. “They’re in her desk, right?” he says to Stiles.

Stiles stammers something that Derek seems to take as a yes, since the man then turns around and takes a few steps away from the bed. At that point Stiles thinks he’d better get down, before he just—just rides Derek around the room because that’s very impressive and convenient but honestly. He has working legs. He doesn’t need to.

What he does need is to not be so clumsy, seeing as Derek just put in the effort to get them both safely off the bed, but. Well. Lydia makes this noise. It’s—it’s definitely _happy_ , and Derek gets distracted by it too, craning his head around at the same time that Stiles loses track of a foot when he’s trying to unwind his legs from Derek’s waist, and…anyway, Stiles trips Derek and Derek is not _that_ solidly-planted, and they both tip over.

On the way down, Stiles’ windmilling arm manages to catch something, which turns out to be the edge of Lydia’s desk. He seizes it and hauls himself up a few inches before Derek’s chin smashes into his chest, just slightly below where it would’ve knocked out all of his breath, then hangs on till Derek’s weight shifts to push down instead of into him. Then he starts to claw himself up to where he can reach all the little compartments built into the desk.

“Might not be the man-mountain type, but that doesn’t mean I can’t—gah!” Stiles nearly rips the poor drawer out of its rails. 

Then he pries his hand off that and slaps it down on the desk, and looks at Derek. Who pulls back from the sniffing he’s doing at Stiles’ groin, his brows raised as if he’s been taking lessons from Lydia. He pauses for just a second, expectant, and when Stiles doesn’t do anything—because Stiles doesn’t have the slightest idea _what_ that might be—he nods and proceeds to put his mouth on Stiles’ cock. Around it. Anyway.

Stiles scrambles for a handhold against the desk again, and ends up knocking the drawer down anyway. He grimaces as various delicate tools scatter out of it, and then Derek does something with his tongue and this—this _whuffing_ noise that really shouldn’t be attractive, let alone something that seems to flush all the blood out of Stiles’ head and down into the prick Derek’s industriously working with his lips and tongue and that might be throat, Stiles thinks vaguely. Oddly soft and flexing against the head of his cock, and he’s going to need to buy Lydia a whole new set of watchmaking tools, and a bunch of other random thoughts flick about his head before suddenly whiting out into just one: that is _so_ good.

Derek shuffles forward on his knees, doing Stiles the favor of just pinning him in place. And that might actually be conscious on Derek’s part, with the faintly annoyed sound he makes every time Stiles accidentally bangs a knee into his shoulder, but anyway, it helps and then Stiles can just go limp and really just—it’s _really_ good.

“Oh,” he finds himself saying, half-folded over Derek’s head. He pats limply at Derek’s back till he stumbles across one of Derek’s shoulders, and then makes an attempt to push himself up. “Oh. All right. That—that—I mean, didn’t you like Lydia?”

The shoulder he’s holding onto moves. Then again, as the top of Derek’s head squirms against his belly, and then he gets himself propped up enough for Derek to release his cock. “Yes, so?”

“Um, no reason, I just—maybe was somewhat confused, and oh, hey! The picks!” Stiles makes a diving attempt over Derek’s shoulder, then realizes just in time how close he is to kneeing the man in the face and just squeezes around Derek instead. Scoops up the picks from the carpet and then sets about dealing with Derek’s manacles. “I guess I thought you were avoiding me?”

“Because I never had any idea what you thought about me,” Derek says. As the manacles come off, he rolls his shoulders roughly, then brings his arms around and gives his wrists a jerking twist that pops their bones. Cracks his neck, then sighs, his eyes half-closing in an almost feline look of satisfaction. “She’s simple, she tells you if she doesn’t want you around or not. You were always…what?”

“What? Nothing, just, you’re really attractive but you’re a _werewolf_ , it doesn’t make sense to draw comparisons to cats, and anyway, it’s not like they have a monopoly on grace. Um. I mean.” Stiles fiddles with the picks. “Never mind that, I was just thinking about some…some things.”

Derek looks blankly at him for a second. 

“You were always talking. Like that,” he says. Not mocking, just a plain statement. And then he shrugs and he’s suddenly leaning forward on his hands, sniffing again, except it’s not just like he’s scenting the air, it’s long deep whiffs like he’s—like he’s _savoring_ it, right up to where he rubs his nose against the side of Stiles’ cheek, slow and sensual, and finishes with a lip at Stiles’ mouth. “So you’re—you’re letting what we did go?”

“Well—” Then Stiles grabs Derek’s arm, just as he senses the man shifting away. “I mean. We like you. We like you a _lot_. And—yes, it was really stupid, but we’re not really letting it go, we’re just—we want to see whether there’s anything else, I guess. Anything good. Something we all want.”

Derek stops shifting away. He’s too close for Stiles to really make out his expression, but the muscles under Stiles’ hand slowly relax. “Sounds fair,” he says after a moment.

“I think so. I mean, I hope so,” Stiles says. He gives Derek an experimental tug, then starts in surprise when Derek actually moves forward. 

Also, his arm slips out from under him and he starts to fall backward. Derek grabs him, pulls him up, stares into his face for a second, and that apparently settles whatever remaining concerns the man had, because the next thing, he’s yanking Stiles up and is tongue-deep in Stiles’ mouth. Stiles shivers, suddenly aware of how blown he still is from Lydia and then Derek himself just a few minutes ago, and his fingers end up twisting in the front of Derek’s shirt and—

“ _Ahem_.” Lydia isn’t that loud, but she has a way of making her voice carry through anything and anyone. “Picks?”

It’s actually Derek who breaks the kiss first, jerking away sharply enough that Stiles thinks he’s going to be dropped. Stiles doesn’t want to thump his head against the floor, so he flings his arms around Derek, who, true to form, ignores the extra weight and just keeps on moving so that they both tilt upwards. So Stiles ends up with a perfect view of Lydia, and the bed, and…“Is that the one Erica gave you as a joke?”

“Joke or not, it _is_ fully functional,” Lydia remarks, pushing back onto her knees as Peter moans and humps the mattress in front of her. He’s on his belly, head shoved down so far that Stiles can see the whitened knuckles twisted around his manacles, and as she moves her arm between his legs, he lets out a choked growl and arches himself so high that Lydia has to move over to avoid being hit by a buttock. “I know you didn’t like it, but he certainly seems to.”

Stiles lets go of Derek and hops back onto the bed for a look. “It wasn’t that I didn’t _like_ it, it was more that I didn’t—all right, see, when I tried it? That end wasn’t the one that was going in.”

Lydia frowns and glances down. “Oh, you know, you’re right. They really should mark the end, or something like that.”

“My _God_ ,” Peter suddenly gasps. He’s harsh enough that Stiles twists around and reaches for one of Peter’s shoulders, thinking the man’s suffocating. But just as Stiles touches him, Peter suddenly surges up, and he’s just as ridiculously strong and flexible as Derek is, shimmying out of Lydia’s grip and managing to roll Stiles partly under him before Stiles can even catch his breath. “The pair of you, you’re absolutely lethal.”

Stiles grunts at the weight of the man, then goes to push Peter off. But he looks up too, and Peter’s looking down at him, so close that Stiles could put his tongue out and touch the beads of sweat on the man’s face. Flushed, panting for breath, with his eyes dancing with a wonder that—that reminds Stiles of the stars in the sky the first time his parents took him out on a Hunt.

“Lethal,” Peter breathes out slowly. Still holding Stiles’ gaze, his head dips—and then is halted by a hand under one chin.

It pulls Peter’s head back. He coughs a little at the strain, then offers Lydia, who’s leaning over his shoulder, a thoroughly admiring smile. She still glowers at him, but Stiles can tell she’s having a hard time holding onto her irritation, just by how she presses her lips together.

“Lydia?” Stiles says. He pushes himself up on one elbow. Looks at Peter, who’s flicking his eyes between them, still lit with a reckless, shivering kind of hope, and then he lifts his hand. Touches Peter’s cheek, then strokes it—Peter immediately turns into it, lips moving softly against Stiles’ palm—and then he lets his fingers slide back so that they tangle briefly in Lydia’s fingers, as she withdraws them into Peter’s hair. “So…you want to?”

She smiles at him. Tosses her hair back over her shoulder, snorts when his eyes drift to her breasts, set to swaying with the motion, and then she pulls her hand away from him and Peter. Lydia leans over till he can stretch up and just brush her mouth with his; between them, Peter moves abruptly, and then again, a groan shuddering out of him as his knees drag up Stiles’ sides, till Stiles can reach around and wrap his hand over Lydia’s where it’s grasping the dildo.

Together they work it in and out of him. For a few minutes Peter keeps pace with them, rubbing himself against Stiles, nuzzling along Stiles’ throat and nibbling Stiles’ lip till Stiles kisses him, but then Lydia bears her weight down on the dildo and Peter stutters. Stiles sucks Peter’s bottom lip in between his teeth, gently, just enough to hold it, and Peter stutters again. And then Peter abandons any attempt at controlling himself and just throws himself into them, crying out and arching till Stiles thinks he hears every single bone in the man’s spine pop.

It's mesmerizing to watch. Stiles forgets what he’s doing for a moment, looking at the pure release shaking itself through Peter’s body, and only realizes when a weight makes the mattress shift.

He looks over. Derek’s perched on the side of the bed, absently tossing the picks as he runs one hand up and down his cock, almost as absent about that—at least, till Stiles looks at his eyes and sees how starved they look. He twitches at the intensity and Derek catches his eye. Holds it for a second, then two, then three. A trace of frustration starts to creep into Derek’s gaze and then Stiles catches on. Grins and nods and Derek, with a grunt that’s almost grateful, finally pushes himself up.

Derek hands Lydia the picks. She smiles at him and lifts her hand, stroking some sweat off his face, and he gives Stiles another look before twisting around and kissing her fingers. His mouth lingers and it almost seems as if he’ll glance at Stiles again, but then Lydia makes a peremptory noise. That _might_ be a smile on Derek’s face as he obligingly devotes his attention to her, laving and caressing his way down her arm till he’s far enough along it that she can curl the rest around his head, draw his face into her breasts.

As he buries himself in them, Lydia considers the picks in her hand. Then tosses them to Stiles, who’s wormed enough of himself out from under Peter that he has the leverage to haul the man over onto his back. Which is when it becomes obvious that Peter’s still slumped over not because he _couldn’t_ get up, but because he prefers lying down. Looking absolutely delighted, deliberately allowing his knees to swing apart as Stiles rolls his eyes and settles between them.

“I guess these can wait?” Stiles says, holding up the picks.

Peter shrugs. “Well, if you must,” he says, with mock-reluctance, and then a slightly darker shade crosses his face, and his voice grows softer. “It is your wedding night. I’d rather not spoil that, with you. _Especially_ with the two of you.”

“Then stop second-guessing us,” Lydia says. She’s a little breathless, and appears to be slowly tipping over as Derek works his way down her belly, but she still has enough energy to throw Peter a baleful look. “Which you could say was the entire problem in the first place.”

“Oh, all right, they were miserable, let them have a moment,” Stiles says. He’s feeling indulgent. Maybe it’s the way Peter’s eyes roll back into his head when Stiles tugs out the dildo—Stiles isn’t really used to being the swoonworthy type, literally. Sure, Lydia will always stand with him, but she just doesn’t swoon over anybody at all, and while he loves her for it, this right here, it’s a nice compliment. He’ll take it. “They’ll learn.”

Peter drags his head up again, then smiles so invitingly that Stiles ends up kissing him instead of, well, freeing him. Which he really does seem fine with, from the way he wraps his legs around Stiles. “Yes, certainly,” he breathes, tugging Stiles’ lip between his own. “Very eager students, I think you’ll find us. We’ve learned one lesson already.”

“Trust us?” Stiles says, grinning.

“Keep you,” Peter responds. He looks up at Stiles for a long moment, and then he lets out a soaring laugh as his legs suddenly hook Stiles down onto him, so before Stiles is quite ready, his prick is sliding up between Peter’s buttocks. “Now, as to _satisfying_ you, which seems to be the next lesson, let me assure you we’re far more qualified than whatever research you’ve done on your own—”

That’s assuming an awful lot, considering the time Stiles and Lydia have spent on it. And he’d tell Peter so, except he’s busy showing Peter. Lydia sounds like she’s got her hands full as well, and…well, they have the rest of the night. Stiles supposes the bibliography can wait till the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like monasteries might specialize in cheesemaking, nunneries often specialized in time-consuming crafts like lacemaking, since they had a lot of time in between calls to prayer.
> 
> So yes, just to be clear, Stiles and Lydia were both virgins in the sense that they hadn't had penetrative sex with each other, or with anyone else. But, as I'd hope people now realize, that's a really restrictive definition of virginity, and neither of them were going to go into their nuptials with no idea what to do, that's just not in either of their characters, and yes. There were sex toys back then. There have probably been sex toys since people started having sex for purely recreational purposes. And there were pornographic etchings and things like that.
> 
> ...how did the rest of the pack get the jump on Derek and Peter? Well, Erica and Allison did most of the work, and Derek and Peter weren't resisting very much.


	17. Epilogue 1

“So again, I think they’re fine, but I just—I figured you should know,” Scott says, as earnest as he is apologetic. “We probably shouldn’t have kept it from you in the first place, but honestly, I wasn’t even sure they’d stick around and you all seemed so busy with the wedding—”

“You should’ve told me.” John lets that sink into the young man, then leans out and puts his hand on Scott’s shoulder before he can droop too far. “All right, I know now. Go on back to the party.”

Scott blinks, and then his eyes widen in disbelief. “But—but—they’re _in_ Lydia’s bedroom!” he says, gesturing almost as wildly as John’s son. “Are you sure—”

“Lydia’s room, right?” John says. “She still have her voice?”

Allison’s been hanging back and letting Scott do most of the explaining, with just the odd hand to his back whenever he was getting particularly hangdog, but she clears her throat. “Well, she yelled at us that nobody was going to get killed tonight.”

John nods. “No, just let them sort it out. I’ll be down later to help clear people from the tables, so if anything comes up, I’ll take care of it. You go enjoy yourselves, you’ve all had a hell of a week handling all the guests. All right?”

“Well, if you’re sure…” Scott says, still worried. He glances at Allison, who gives him a reassuring smile so he doesn’t notice the arm she’s firmly hooking around his waist, and then back at John. “We really just wanted them to figure it out, instead of just—being so down all the time. I think if they just understand why everybody acted the way they did, it’ll be helpful, even if they don’t…um…”

“I’m sure it will, and if it isn’t, I will _take care of it_ ,” John says. His face is beginning to hurt. It was sore anyway from having to deal with everybody in the house; even if most of them are people he’s glad to have celebrating his son’s wedding, playing the grand host just isn’t something that comes naturally to him. “Now just go and stop thinking about it, please?”

Thankfully, Scott finally seems to get the hint and he goes off with Allison. John stands at the door for a few more seconds to make sure _those_ two actually are heading the right way, and then he sighs and turns, shaking his head. Then pauses. Then he kicks the door shut behind him and stalks back to the _other_ headache in his life, who’s looking at him as if Chris doesn’t have the faintest idea why he shouldn’t be out of the bedroom.

“I could just go by and see if it’s sounding like it’s going well,” Chris says, keeping that bland face on even as John walks up to him.

“I tied you to the bed,” John points out.

They both look at the ropes dangling from Chris’ wrists. “Well, you didn’t do a great job,” Chris says. “If I can get out that easy, seems like that means you’re worried about som—John, _really_?”

John shifts the man over his shoulder, then bundles up the loose rope ends in one hand as he hauls Chris back in the right direction. “You know, for somebody who usually knows when I want to have dinner when I’m sitting down to breakfast, you’re really not getting the point.”

“Sure, I get that you still think I didn’t know what I was doing when I jumped in after—” Chris grunts as John flips him down onto the bed, then crawls on top before he can sneak off again “—after you.”

His eyes dilate when John leans over him, and just leaning on his wrists makes his breath catch. Nothing else, just pinning him, and if John were a less perceptive man, he might take that quick run over the lips that Chris ‘tongue does right then as a sign to just have at him.

Unfortunately, John actually does pay a fair amount of attention to detail, because his damn conscience won’t let him ignore things he doesn’t want to see. “What makes you think that?”

“Not sure,” Chris says, a little wary, a little exasperated. A lot sarcastic, under that stoneface of his. “Maybe the amount of time I’ve spent tied to something of yours lately?”

“I know you knew what you were doing,” John says. He shifts over the man, getting his knees spread so that body weight alone presses their groins together. Can’t help smirking at how Chris bites his lip, but he keeps himself still rather than rubbing into the other man like he’s dying to do. “That’s the whole problem, Argent. If _you_ jump into a damn fae doorway, you know what it is and you’re doing it on purpose. What about your daughter?”

That hits. Chris’ eyes go cold and distant, and his muscles tense up under John. But just as John’s preparing himself to get shoved off, Chris closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and…relaxes. Lets John sink into him, so that it’s almost natural how his legs fold up around John’s waist, how John’s head drops till it’s an effort to keep his lips off Chris’ mouth.

“I didn’t think we were going to _stay_ in there. Knew as soon as I got to you, you’d figure out you were going in circles, and also knew you weren’t going to see that till somebody else told you, you were that worried about Stiles,” Chris says. Breathes in right after, so the rise of his chest rocks John towards him, and then tilts his head just enough to keep them apart. “Besides, Allison’s got Scott now, not to mention Stiles and Lydia, and anyway, I always taught her, if it matters to you, you go after it. That satisfy you, or are you going to keep being an asshole till you stop feeling like you screwed it up?”

John sucks his breath a little himself, and unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the naked man under him. He’s caught Chris truly off-guard once, back when he first talked the man into taking the steward position, and since then Chris has made it a point of pride to study the hell out of him. And he’ll be the first to admit he hasn’t kept up.

“All right, all right,” John finally says. “I know.”

Chris looks at him for another second. Then, little by little, lets his head drift down till frankly, John has no good reason not to kiss him, and about a thousand to. He doesn’t seem to be objecting either, and in fact, is very much helping to push his wrists back up to the headboard where they’re supposed to be tied.

“Just don’t say you’ll—” Chris mumbles into John’s mouth.

“—but I should make it up to you,” John says, and when he hears the start of an annoyed sound rumbling out of Chris’ throat, he leans over and bites the man, right at the point of the jaw. Then again, a little lower, and then sucks his way leisurely down to a nipple as Chris stretches out into a moan instead. “Owe that, and anyway, you know you’ll be asking for it, once Scott gets around to asking Allison to make it formal.”

“Damn it, John, your son just got married finally, can we just _wait_ till we start—start thinking about—about—” Chris hisses and groans, twisting more and more urgently as John continues down his body. “You _asshole_.”

John lifts his head. Looks up at Chris, then grins at the glare he’s getting. “Oh, I know you knew _that_ ,” he says. He grins a little longer, then cranes his head and gives the top of Chris’ cock a lick. Listens to the noises the other man’s making, then settles himself in for a while. “What happens when you jump in anyway, Argent. You know better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allison: Dad, I want to talk to you about Scott.  
> Chris: Wait a second. *reaches under table and pulls out thick stack of papers*  
> Allison:...are these contingency plans for our wedding?  
> Chris: *sighs* Well, you do seem to love each other.  
> Allison: Awww, Dad! *hugs him* Good, so I'll go ask him and get this started before we're too old for all of the trouble.


	18. Epilogue 2

Peter has just plucked out a dewclaw from the box when a chill swirls around him, despite the warm day and entirely adequate clothing he’s wearing. He grimaces and rolls his shoulders against it, then flicks the claw back into the box and goes back to the inventory he’s attempting to cross-check against the boxes of bones piled up around him.

But the chill refuses to leave, and soon the candle flames in the crypt start to flicker. When a sheet from his list tries to whisk off the crate he’s using as a makeshift desk, Peter finally loses his patience, thumping a fist down onto the papers and then lifting a disgusted expression. “I really don’t have any reason to speak to you,” he says. “Your son’s alive and well, and, if I’m not mistaken, being tutored in the finer points of medieval siegecraft. As for myself, I am _actually_ gainfully employed, which always seemed to be at the root of your complaints about my lifestyle.”

Talia’s as unimpressed with his sarcasm in death as she was in life, which Peter supposes is how he knows the wavering specter before him is the true soul of his sister. “I just worried that you’d have something to use that wit of yours on, Peter. You were always so difficult to satisfy.”

“Well, I am. Satisfied.” Peter glances at his sister, then reaches over and shuts the box containing her claws. He knows very well that that’s not going to be enough to dismiss her, but he still can’t help feeling a prick of irritation when she gives him that damned indulgent smile, as if the worst he can do truly just reminds her of how they’re family. “Not that you contributed much to that.”

“Peter,” his sister says reproachfully. “Peter. I told you to be careful with Deucalion.”

“Oh, _told_ me. Right, of course, and you couldn’t have just _told_ me that the moment he took off your claws, his ghosts would gobble him up, so no need to expose them at all to him, let alone nearly get them killed by that maniac,” Peter mutters, angrily shuffling his list. He’s not even reading it, but he doesn’t want to look at her and it’s either the list or the bones of his ancestors, who all probably agree with her, going off past history. “You couldn’t have just _told_ me they were lovely, literate, cultured demigods who I really would rather—”

“Fall in love with?” When he looks up, his sister’s standing on the very opposite side of his crate. She smiles at him and then puts her bone-chilling hands on his, for an extra, entirely unnecessary twitch out of him. “One, you never, ever liked being told what to do or say or like, so telling you that would have just predisposed you the opposite way. Two, he had my claws. You know I was very limited in what I could say to you as long as that was true. And three—”

Her smile suddenly vanishes. The ice in her fingers seems to shoot up through his arms, freezing them so he can’t pull them away, and then sending painful needles into his chest till he has to bite back a gasp of pain.

“Three, Peter,” Talia says. “Three. _You_ thought you had Deucalion figured out. And even if I had been able to speak to you, I couldn’t have said anything to you to change your mind about that. You always thought you knew him better than me.”

Peter grits his teeth against the cold, then forces his claws out and stabs them into the top of the crate. Braced, he raises his head and looks at his sister again and…can’t contradict her. That’s the trick with speaking to the dead—they always seem to look straight through you, withering any kind of lie you might want to offer them.

He takes a breath, and she withdraws her hands. He flexes his fingers to get the feeling back into them, then exhales sharply, still looking at the crate. “I know,” he says quietly. “I know. Talia, I’m—I—if I—”

“I’m dead, Peter.” Talia states that without any recrimination, or guilt, or even anger. She simply observes what her current state of being is. “What’s done is done, and now I just wish you and Derek long life and happiness. So _please_ , if you would…don’t botch it?”

Peter jerks his head up, but she’s always faded away, with just a speckling of motes where she had been. And even that is more of a trick of the eye, trying to fill in from memory…something icy touches his cheek and he twists sharply about, knocking sheets to the floor—but she’s gone from there, too. And in another second, even the chill of her kiss is gone.

He’s still staring at the empty space when footsteps sound on the steps into the crypt. Derek’s been with Peter long enough now to pause, cough into a fist, and then look wary when he finally does appear. “You sounded like you were talking to somebody,” he says.

“Your mother,” Peter says, still rattled.

Derek stares at him. Then comes down the last step in a hurry, stalking about the room as Peter finally shakes himself and stoops to retrieve the papers. Of course he doesn’t find anything, and in the end, just comes to look curiously at Peter. “Was it important?” he asks.

“Just…just nagging, like she used to,” Peter says. He straightens out his list, then flips through till he finds where he left off. “Take care of yourself, don’t forget to eat your marrow, stop leaving the bloody laundry out for the flies.”

“She never said that about the laundry,” Derek says, looking suspicious. “She said stop losing your shirt, and the bloody laundry’s what Lydia was yelling at Isaac and Allison last week.”

Peter looks up from his list. “I’m sorry, did you say something? Such as of course you’d like to help me make sure we won’t accidentally stack Great-Grandfather under a lowly third cousin?”

Derek makes a face, then looks back at the stairs. Then, looking resentful the entire time about it, he reluctantly shuffles over to Peter. “Stiles wants to know if you still want to see him do that thing with the mistletoe or if you’re busy,” he says. “I guess I should do some of this so nobody complains, if family shows up next Hunt.”

“If you think you can remember to actually read my diagrams,” Peter says after a moment, but he’s feeling genuinely appreciative of his nephew. He taps the sheets against the crate, then pushes them over to Derek. “All right, then. Let’s see how you do.”

“I hope Mom told you to stop worrying so much,” Derek mutters as Peter turns to go. Then looks blank as Peter twists back, as if he honestly thinks Peter’s going to believe that.

On the other hand, Peter’s missing out on something Stiles has been promising to show him for the past two weeks, and he can always deal with his nephew later. He weighs the pros and cons for a second, which probably is the best evidence yet of how much his sister’s visit has thrown him, and then goes up the stairs, shaking his head at himself. Really, if anyone should stop worrying these days, it’s the ones who aren’t even here.


	19. Epilogue 3

The first time Stiles wakes up as a married man, he is incredibly sore. Turns out that’s one of the things that the research _didn’t_ exaggerate.

“Oh, stop whining, you only rode them once each, and there’s just the two of them,” Lydia mutters as she crawls over him. She’s very careful about she swings her legs off the edge of the bed, but she’s still fine to pick her way across the room to the nearest pitcher of water and then bring it back, along with some of the migraine tincture Stiles makes up for her. “I had _three_ to accommodate.”

Stiles waits till he’s tipped back his drops of tincture and wetted his parched throat before he rolls his eyes at her. “Well, but I’m—”

Lydia’s brows are already up. “Please don’t let anything along the lines of ‘not built for it’ come out of your mouth. I looked at the same anatomy texts that you did, and besides, there were genuine signs of wear on that collection we bought from that dealer in Eastern exotica and the size of some of the—”

“Are you two _actually_ arguing over who handled the night better?” Derek grunts. Face-down in the bed, arms and legs sprawled out around him, not the slightest effort to ensure he has sufficient air for breath, let alone proving that months-long guilty mooning from afar aside, he’s still the same cranky werewolf they thought he was. “Can we just leave it as it was great?”

“But I want to hear about this collection,” Peter says. He’s on his belly next to Derek, propping his chin up on his arms and smiling invitingly when Stiles and Lydia turn towards him. “Oh, not disputing Derek’s opinion at all, but the collection already sounds fascinating, and you did make a _very_ convincing argument last night for open minds.”

Lydia regards Peter for just long enough that a little worry starts to creep in around the edges of Peter’s smug air. Then she snorts and tosses on a dressing-gown. The back of it is twisted up and caught under the sash and Stiles gestures to her, but she’s so intent on trying to straighten out the front across herself that she doesn’t see him. Stiles sighs and half-heartedly reaches out to tug the silk, only to yelp and fall off the bed when somebody pounds on the door.

Somehow, he rolls so that he lands on his feet. He’s not even trying, he just manages it, and when he straightens up, Lydia shares his astonishment. Stiles grins and _then_ he aches.

Also, that somebody is still pounding on the door. “Here,” Lydia mutters, grabbing up a shirt and tossing it at him.

Apparently, Stiles used up all his coordination on the tuck-and-roll, since he doesn’t come remotely close to catching it. He bends over, grimacing at both himself and at his sore body, snags the shirt, and then straightens up just in time to catch Derek _and_ Peter hastily shuffling over to the side of the bed. “You don’t need to get up,” Stiles says.

“You’re sure?” Derek says, and that’s when Stiles notices that they both have their claws out. Peter’s also—

“When did that happen?” Stiles says, staring at the broken ankle manacle in Peter’s hand.

Peter jerks it towards him, as if considering hiding it behind his back, and then stops himself. “They broke when you and Lydia were, ah, consummating the marriage,” he says. “Unless you mean when we took them off, in which case I believe it was at some point between…but that can wait, if the matter’s urgent.”

He nods towards the door, which Lydia is just opening. Derek’s gaze goes past Stiles to her and he tenses up, gathering his legs under himself as if to…oh. “ _Oh_ , no, no, no, no mauling wedding guests,” Stiles says, quickly waving his arms between himself and Derek in the universal stop-no-wait signal. “No, it’s all right, the runes didn’t go off—oh, we should key you in so you know—”

“Stiles,” Lydia says, in that curt tone that means if he doesn’t come over, she’s going to brutalize whoever’s poking her.

“I think no killing the guests includes you too, I mean, honestly, we’re married now, that officially means you don’t have any reason to be inhospitable and hey! Not even a guest!” Stiles says, yanking on the shirt and running over and amazingly, not even tripping over anything. He even gets his head out the right hole, and just in time to pull up by Lydia and not ram face-first into Erica, who’s peeking around the door.

“So there’s no duty of hospitality owed,” Lydia says dryly. “However, there _is_ a duty of consideration.”

“So we’re being considerate in kneecapping anybody who thinks they might just waltz up here and confirm that last night went as planned,” Erica says, just as dryly. “But there are a lot of them, and they’re all starting to ask, and look, I just figured I’d come up and get it out of the way.”

If possible, Lydia’s expression turns even icier. “Please don’t tell me you want the bedsheets.”

“No, my nose works. Plenty of proof right there.” Erica smirks at them as she leans in farther, sniffs ostentatiously, and then yanks herself back into the hall just before Lydia applies a firm foot to the door and kicks it shut. 

Stiles puts his hand on the handle, then stops as the sound of Erica cackling her way back to breakfast filters through the door. He makes a face at the wood, then turns around. “We probably should go down at some point.”

“We should?” Lydia echoes, less than enthusiastically. Then she sighs and steps forward, putting her hands on Stiles’ chest. She lets them rest for a moment before sliding them up onto his shoulders. “No, no, I suppose I did sign up for this, ridiculously intrusive guests and insolent staff and all the other things.”

“Regretting it already?” Stiles says.

He’s teasing. He thinks she knows that, but even though she’s smiling at him, her eyes are a little more sober than he’d expect. So then he starts to wonder—and she snorts, and tugs at the short hair at his nape.

“No,” she says. She leans forward and presses her lips against his, then settles back for a look at him. Whatever she sees, she’s satisfied with, and she relaxes with one last tweak at his hair. Then she turns her head and looks back at the bed. “Well, then.”

Stiles tilts his head, then makes an ‘ah’ sound as he suddenly sees it too…and on the bed, Derek and Peter suddenly look very nervous.

“We’re not going to kill anybody,” Derek says abruptly.

“Not unless you’d like us to,” Peter adds, a little more smoothly, but still shifting back as if he might just dive down the other side of the bed.

“Oh, that’s not what we had in mind at all,” Lydia says sweetly. “Was it, Stiles?”

“Not even close,” Stiles says, grinning as Derek winces in anticipation. “Actually, I think you’re going to like this one.”

So Stiles and Lydia aren’t always the best at reassuring people. Then again, they never promised that they’d be. They just promised that they’d be good leaders of the Hunt, responsible caretakers of their estate and the people who live on it, and loyal and honest to each other so long as they each shall live. There’s nothing in their vows about not being scary.

Anyway. People seem to stick around in spite of that. Derek and Peter did, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Traditionally in a lot of societies, a newly-married couple are required to prove that the marriage was consummated. Showing bloody bedsheets is one method, but actually, it really varies a lot by the individual woman whether or not you bleed your first time. 
> 
> This story basically evolved out of a desire to have Stiles and Lydia be a terrifying two-headed semi-telepathic monster with lots of period clothing porn, plus some folklore reading I've been doing about the Wild Hunt. But mostly the desire to pair them up and have them go as a pair after other people, because I really like the possibilities of them coscheming on things.
> 
> I realize the epilogues are out of chronological order - probably will go back and re-order later, but leaving it this way for now so people aren't confused in looking for the latest update.


End file.
